The Backyard SETI Circumstance
by dhalgren99
Summary: For very nerdy people, perhaps their biggest dream is to experience what they normally only read about. It may also be quite the nightmare. The lads learn this with unexpected visitors, and that's before the aliens show up.
1. Chapter 1

Okay, a variety of notes are probably necessary here. One, this is LONG. Like, novel length long. As someone pointed out elsewhere, people seem to respond better to short chunks as opposed to great heaping masses of words piling down on them, and since I really didn't bother with chapters anyway, I'll just put it up in little slices. So it won't all get posted right away, but will be eventually, probably within the next week or so. Hey, don't look at me like that, I have a busy work schedule. Rest assured, it is finished.

Two, and this is just as key, the story prominently features two of my characters. Astute readers may remember Joseph Brown from the CSI story also on this site (the one that isn't the dream sequence, and barely feels like a CSI story, natch) . . . for those just coming in, he's second in command of the Time Patrol and that's all you really need to know for the moment. Tristian hasn't appeared in a fan-ficesque story here yet, but he's probably my main character. Brown's best friend, host of the Agents and Voted Most Likely to Do Something Bordering on Irrational To Save Your Life. Any questions on them, feel free to field them my way. If you totally fall in love with them and want to use them, I'd prefer to know about it first.

Chances are as you read this, you may wonder if this is a BBT story guest-starring two of my characters or the other way around. I'll leave that up to people who aren't me to make the final call. This is just how the story went, although, frankly, I like writing mine better and it probably shows.

With that said, I can perhaps promise a bit of humor, some drama, some things that don't make any sense at all and more introspection than you'd expect from a story about aliens in an apartment building. Enjoy, then!

Oh, and obviously Leonard, Sheldon and Penny are not my characters and never will be. But then Chuck Lorre doesn't own my characters, so nyah! I know there's plenty of debate over whether Penny should wind up with Sheldon or Leonard . . . there's merits on both sides but I'm sticking with the paradigm the show seems to have designed for itself. But its not really my focus, as you'll see. In the interests of full disclosure, I've seen all of season one exactly once and a good chunk of season two. While I'm vaguely well versed, those looking to get into arguments about niggling details or whether I have a shelf in the right place in the apartment . . . please go elsewhere. Its best for both of us that way.

And I'm done rambling. Onwards!

* * *

If Doctor Sheldon Cooper was certain of one thing in this unified theoretical state we called existence, it was that there were two ways of doing things: his way and the wrong way. The fact that everyone seemed to keep choosing the wrong way and yet the world still kept functioning in its ramshackle blundering way didn't invalidate his hypothesis so much as point to a deeply embedded flaw in their methodology. Sometimes he thought that his entire life was simply one giant experiment designed to show people that one could live a life of quiet efficiency and expedience as long as one had the will. All it took was the desire to plot out every second of every day, as well as the potential consequences and probabilities of those actions, as well as the intersecting probabilities of the actions not taken, as well as any conflicting variables.

It was all very simple. Once in a while he was tempted to write up all the data and place it inside the Superman cookie tin that lay under his bed, with instructions to not read it until the event of his demise. The thought of leaving behind instructions for humanity was appealing to him. But he was compiling more data every day and although he hadn't seen fit to start altering his conclusions, there was just enough statistical leeway that he could let the variables sift for a while.

He doubted he would write it anyway. Why make it easy for everyone? Besides, knowing how people were, they'd find a way to screw up his very explicit directions. In some ways, it was best to simply lead by example.

The milk popped over his cereal reassuringly as he took his usual spot on the couch. He didn't even need to look at his watch to know what time it was. What his friends never seemed to realize was that the world was a puzzle. A three dimensional puzzle with edges sometimes leaked out into the fourth dimension but a puzzle nonetheless. And the only way for one to fit comfortably inside the world was to get all the pieces to lock together properly. Then the picture became clear and it all made sense. Just like here. The proper time, the right cereal, the exact ratio of milk to cereal, the familiar support of the couch and starting the television just enough before _Doctor Who_ began so that the picture was warmed up to give an optimal image for the entire forty-five minutes of the episode. The puzzle, complete. And thus things were right. Down to the atomic level.

"_Sheldon!_"

The sound of his best friend's voice, followed by the thump of someone hitting the wall with parts of their body that probably weren't meant to strike solid surfaces, suggested that someone didn't exactly share Sheldon's contentment, certainly not to the noble gas levels of inertness that he aspired to.

"Sheldon, what the hell . . ." Leonard came crashing into the hallway, one leg in his pants while trying to simultaneously hop on the other leg and get it through the empty leg. Judging by his trajectory and involuntary center of gravity, he would probably fall down right when he reached the kitchen.

_Thump. _Leonard hit the floor at the edge of the landing. _Oh, right_, Sheldon corrected himself. _Didn't account for friction, although it is within the margin of error, I suppose. Rookie mistake, though. _He decided to keep it to himself.

"Sssh," Sheldon said. Leonard craned his head to look up at him, his glasses askew on his face and an expression somewhere between dazed and amazed. "The expendable supporting character is about to discover the TARDIS is bigger on the inside than out. Don't take that moment away from them."

Leonard's puzzled glare doubled, and then he just shook his head. He forced his free leg into his pants and stumbled back onto his feet, adjusting his glasses in the process. "Why didn't you tell me that I overslept? I mean, you've been up for hours and-"

He stopped, letting his arms drop to his sides. On the couch, Sheldon was mouthing along to ". . . _bigger on the inside . . ._" and clearly not paying attention to a word he was saying. Leonard stared at him for another second, swatting at his unruly hair to bring some kind of fundamental order to it, the realization finally dawning on him.

"Wait a minute . . . if you're watching _Doctor Who_ then it's-"

"Precisely six-fifteen," Sheldon said, with the kind of assuredness that only came from being on the mailing list of the NIST.

"Hold on . . ." he fixed his shirt, which had someone become twisted around his shoulders in the process of running out of his room. "If it's six-fifteen then why does my clock say nine-thirty?"

"A little experiment," Sheldon replied, not taking his eyes off the television.

Leonard chose his next few words very carefully, secretly wishing that it were possible for a tone of voice to wrap itself around someone's throat. "What do you mean, _experiment,_ Sheldon?"

"Oh. It was _very_ fascinating." Sheldon settled back, turning his attention away from his television show, which told Leonard how seriously he was actually taking this. His face became very animated, although he never spilled a drop of his cereal. "You see, I've noticed over time that humans, who once existed purely on a diurnal cycle, have more and more let their bodies become attuned to external artificial forces. Alarm clocks, calendars, episodes of _Friends_, we gauge our lives by these instead of letting it be regulated by our own natural internal clocks." He gestured toward Leonard with the spoon, using it to make small squiggles on an invisible board. "My thought was whether that internal clock has atrophied so much that if taken away, we'd be unable to tell time properly and would simply believe whatever these external forces tell us."

"So you changed the clocks."

"Yes." Sheldon smiled gamely. "I even reprogrammed your cell phone to display only Australian time, in case you caught on and happened to use that. I put an alternate power source in your alarm clock in case you unplugged it by accident. I also asked the bank across the street if they'd change their giant digital clock on the odd chance you might look out your window at some point during the day, but the gentleman in security refused to listen, even when I explained to him the necessity of having everyone in a four square mile radius on board for the experiment, or else we ran the risk of it not being blinded properly." Sheldon sniffed. "But apparently the words _scientific integrity _were not in Hank's vocabulary."

"A lot of words probably weren't," Leonard noted dryly. "So, what are your conclusions?"

"Mixed. On the one hand you did actually get up on time, but instead of listening to your body's natural clock you simply panicked and refused to trust your instincts. If I had been a smilodon, you would be kitty meat right now, sir."

"I'll keep that in mind if we ever enter another Ice Age," Leonard said wearily, trudging over to the kitchen cabinets.

"I'll probably have to repeat the experiment," Sheldon mused, partly to himself. "Although now that you know the nature of the experiment, you're compromised ethically from participating in it further. Maybe Penny would make a suitable subject."

Leonard did his best to stifle a laugh. "Okay, you try that. Although you may discover more than you want to know about the physical nature of time in the third dimension."

Sheldon tilted his head to the side slightly. "How so?"

Leonard gave his friend a look. "When she throws a clock at you." Sheldon merely continued to look at him with his eyes narrowed, the way he did when he was still trying to process a notion he found illogical. In the meantime, Leonard sighed and went looking through the cabinets to find something to eat. Alphabetical cereal, soup organized by the type of disease it would be most effective against and placed according to the likelihood of getting said disease, as well as a series of hermetically sealed bags that were all labeled _Do Not Open Except in Case of _with a different natural disaster finishing each sentence. _I don't really want any of this stuff_, Leonard thought.

He came to a decision. _What the heck, I'm already wide awake now_. Grabbing his bag, he swung it over his shoulder and said, "Listen, Sheldon, I'm going down to the bagel place. You want anything?"

Sheldon gave him a long stare, as if unsure if the question were serious or not. When neither of them said anything for a good minute, he finally realized that Leonard was really waiting for an answer and said, "I don't possibly see what your efforts can add to what I already have."

"All right, fine." Leonard sighed and headed for the door. "I'll back in a bit, if you change your mind, call me."

". . . after all," Sheldon continued, "I had plenty of time to prepare for breakfast, as _my_ body knew exactly what time it was, having set my internal clock to equal Greenwich Mean Time, that way I simply have to do the calculations in my . . . _hey_." He leaned forward a bit, his eyes widening in shock and his voice climbing an octave or two up the scale. "Hey! The television is out!"

Leonard rolled his eyes. "We can look at it when I get back, Sheldon. I'm hungry now."

"But Leonard . . ." Sheldon spun around in his spot, a twitchy plea taking root in his eyes, ". . . how am I supposed to know the Doctor resolves the temporal paradox?"

"Probably the same way he did the last time you saw the episode. The Variability Principle doesn't really apply to pre-recorded television shows. Maybe the cable's just out." Leonard opened the door, knowing he wouldn't be able to escape without at least one more second of begging. "We'll look when I get _back_."

"But _Leonard_-"

"Good-_bye_, Sheldon," Leonard shot back, dashing through the door and closing it behind him as quickly as he could.

* * * * *

Leonard was tempted to put something in front of the door as he left the apartment in case Sheldon tried to follow him. Muffled as it was, he could still hear his friend calling for him through the wood, his cries growing more insistent, like the desperate mating call of a flightless bird. God, it was only a TV show. It wasn't like it was _Battlestar Galactica_ or anything. Sheldon would be okay after a little while, it wouldn't be anything like that time when the power went out during the _Star Trek_ marathon and he had tried to rig up his own power supply. If Raj's Geiger counter watch hadn't tipped them off, things might have turned out quite differently.

Chances are he would pace around the apartment for a while, quietly reciting the dialogue that he was sure he was missing while continually checking the television and all the wires. Eventually he'd start fiddling with it and if it wasn't back on by then he'd immerse himself in some other project while occasionally giving the television a tight-lipped, flared nostril glare. He'd be a pain to be around the rest of the day but at least it wouldn't require the people from OSHA to show up again.

Which was why he was going to waste enough time in the bagel place as humanly possible. Leonard stifled a yawn, shifting his bag on his shoulder again. If he didn't fall asleep there. He glanced across the hall, to the apartment across the way. Perhaps he should knock on Penny's door and see if she wanted anything. She'd probably think that was nice of him, especially this early in the-

He was five steps across the hall, his hand already poised to knock on the door, when it hit him. _It's six thirty in the morning. _He had forgotten for a second, the digital dial on his clock still flashing in his head like an LCD forest fire, the residual panic of thinking he'd overslept still swirling around in his brain. _Dammit, Sheldon, why you can't be more like a normal crazy person and talk to stuffed animals or receive signals from the mothership? _Penny wouldn't be up this early, a fact she had reminded him about more than once. _Unless the building is on fire, I don't want to hear from you until at least nine AM. And even then, carry me out and tell me about it later. _Nope, something told him her ability to appreciate thoughtfulness was directly proportional to the integer on the clock dial. Oh well.

Alone it was then. _But._ This could still work out. He could pick up an extra bagel and time his return for when Penny came out of her apartment. That way he would seem extra thoughtful for considering her without even asking. And by then Sheldon would have either fixed the television or gone off somewhere else to sulk.

Yes. It was all fitting together nicely. Leonard felt his mood lift a little, the rough start of his morning worn away by the day's new possibilities. Good. It was about time something started going-

The clatter started high above him, almost directly through the ceiling. It was a loose rumbling, rocks being mumbled in a flash forward of plate tectonics, a cascade of snarled dynamite punctuated by sharp knocks and what sounded like the occasional yell, eventually devolving into a steady rolling tapping, a constant rain of bowling balls that seemed to be growing louder with each passing second.

Leonard cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowed. _That sounds like someone falling down a flight of-_

The man came into view a moment, the angle of his deflection causing all his arms and legs to go askew, all resistance gone as he careened heavily into the wall, hands feebly grasping at the railing and lost before he even started the fight.

Leonard leapt back sharply, nearly losing his balance as the man came to a messy, limp halt at his feet, hitting his head with a bang on the floor and landing face down, one arm thrown out as if fighting for an extra inch. He was dressed in what appeared to be a black uniform, although it had no identifying markings.

"Oh my God, are you okay . . ." Leonard immediately bent down to check him. He must have slipped and fallen down the steps, or maybe passed out. Without thinking, he turned the man over, then cursing himself for doing it. _You idiot, he could have broken bones, don't-_

The man was conscious, although barely. He was young, maybe not much older than Leonard, with a shock of close-cropped brown hair and smooth features. His complexion was pale, approaching ashen. Leonard could see several blue-purple bruises already forming on his face, like diatoms spreading. One hand was covering his chest, the fingers idly twitching. His breathing was shallow, and with a hiss he inhaled sharply, his face registering a stab of pain.

"Listen, ah, okay, listen, just don't move . . ." Leonard was doing his best not to panic but panic was slowly winning. "Just stay right there and I'll . . ."

The man's lips parted slightly, and his eyelids fluttered open, darting around in lazy arcs until finally settling on Leonard. A grin crossed his face, drawn back on weak strings and at odds with the situation.

"Yeah," the man said, with a quiet laugh. "I've done enough moving for today."

"Right, right," Leonard said quickly. "I'll go get help and . . ." Maybe Sheldon had an emergency first-aid kit, hell, the man probably had a surgeon's kit hidden somewhere in the apartment, in case he ever had to do an appendectomy on himself. Like he'd trust anyone else. "Does . . . does anything hurt I can . . . I can maybe get some ice . . ."

"Just this." The man moved his hand away from where it was covering his chest, revealing a neatly drilled hole about two inches wide close to his heart. Blood was slowly oozing from it in regular pulses, an escape hatch too easily taken.

Leonard staggered back a step, the world falling into an array of broken equations that refused to balance.

The man must have seen Leonard's face, because he laughed thickly in a wet burbling noise that sounded out of place coming from his body. "Yeah," he said, coughing a little as his back arched against the floor. One finger weakly traced the edges of the hole. "I should probably get that looked at, huh?"

Then with a deflated sigh, the man's eyes rolled back into his head and he quite efficiently passed out.

* * * * *

This was turning out to be a waste of his time. The fault wasn't in the television itself, as he had taken it apart and put it back together again, in the process making some improvements to the picture quality. Calls to the cable company hadn't gone through, making him suspect they had starting picking up on what phone number was his. Resplicing the wires was a viable option but if he was going to do that he might as well rewire the entire apartment the way he had always wanted to, with superconductors. Leonard had tried to talk him out of it several times, but he wasn't here and perhaps it was an idea whose time had come.

The fact that Leonard wasn't here rankled him more than he wanted to admit. Didn't he know that some matters were very important to him? How could his friend leave him in this obvious time of need? Sheldon had backed him in so many ridiculous attempts to throw himself at Penny that he needed to start using scientific notation, so the least Leonard could do was offer moral support.

Well. The next time Leonard needed help trying to integrate a Levy flight formulation, he'd show him a thing or two about chaos theory. He wasn't just some garage where you pulled your car in when you wanted to perform fractional quantum mechanics on it.

A rapid knocking on the door tore him reluctantly out of his thoughts. _Odd_. None of the other neighbors were up this early, certainly not Penny. Besides, this knocking was not unlike an atrial flutter, while Penny's tended to be approximate a more typical ventricular tachycardia. She wouldn't be up this early anyway, for some reason she tended to not maintain a regular seven-and-three-quarters hours of slumber, preferring to do what she called "sleeping in". That merely led to a slippery circadian rhythm. He had made up charts to prove it to her but she had merely yawned, thus further proving his point.

The knocking continued without pause. It couldn't be Leonard, as gratifying as that might be to have him recognize that his desire for breakfast did not supersede Sheldon's needs. After all, he did have a key to the place.

Shrugging, Sheldon went back to sketching out the schematics of the new apartment wiring in his notebook. He wondered if there was room for that wireless transmitter he had been mulling over. There was a fantastic nature show that came out from New Zealand and it would spectacular to not have to watch it on his laptop anymore. If he drilled a hole in the ceiling right about . . .

The door suddenly popped open and Leonard practically fell in, stumbling backwards for several steps. "Why didn't you answer the door?" he nearly shouted, his voice reaching toward registers that Sheldon hadn't heard since that errant pitch at the university's Planck Day softball picnic. From his angle Sheldon could see that Leonard was strangely hunched over, like he had indeed been hit again. Perhaps another overture to Penny had gone poorly. Well, he should have known how she'd be this early.

"Why didn't you open the door?" Sheldon inquired. "Or have you regressed to a primordial state where such concepts have now become foreign to you? It's really quite simple." He stood up, rapidly moving around the couch. "Here, I'll show you. You take the doorknob and . . ."

Sheldon froze in mid-step, seeing the reason that Leonard's posture was so funny.

"Don't just stand there!" Leonard shouted. "Help me with him." He had his hands under some man's armpits and was dragging him into the room.

Sheldon stood there for a second, the muscles working without any sound coming out. "Dare I even ask what this is all about?"

"I don't know, he fell down the stairs outside. Help me get him to the couch." Leonard grunted as he struggled to bring the man in a few more feet. His burden was definitely unconscious, little more than dead weight and not able to assist Leonard at all in overcoming the friction coefficient of their floor.

"Since when are we an infirmary?" Sheldon asked archly, but he came over and grabbed the man's legs so that he wasn't scuffing their hardwood floor up with his boots. "I thought we had this discussion after the Chirpers incident."

"You try to walk past an injured baby bird!" Leonard protested. "And I've already apologized several times for him making a nest in your Helm's Deep diorama."

Sheldon glared at Leonard across the prone man, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "There is no apology for what he did to Gandalf. Even the Valar in their might wouldn't have been able to repair the damage." The two of them fell silent as the maneuvered the man between the couch and the coffee table.

"Still," Leonard said, biting his lip to keep a laugh down, "you could at least call him Gandalf the-"

Sheldon's stare hardened into something razor edged. Leonard looked down, muffling the snicker just in time again. But the glance reminded him of their impromptu cargo and his face went serious again as he put more of his meager strength on lifting him up onto the couch. The whole time the man didn't react, even when Leonard almost bumped his head against the table. It was hard to tell if he was even breathing.

Meanwhile, Sheldon was studying him more closely, his eyes focusing with all the intensity of a spy satellite. "What did you say happened to him?" he asked, his voice taking on that resolute cadence it had when he was sifting through theories in his head.

"I told you, he fell down the stairs." Leonard started to guide the man's head toward the cushion, praying that he could keep Sheldon distracted long enough so that he didn't notice that their guest would be laying on his spot. That was not an argument he wanted to have right now. He twisted, one knee on the couch, trying to get the man up without pulling a muscle or having the man land on top of him.

That didn't seem to satisfy Sheldon. "Why is he dressed like someone out to do reconnaissance behind enemy lines?"

"I don't know." Leonard backed up onto the arm of the couch, almost flipping over the top of it in his efforts to get everything situated. Only the dead weight he was holding kept him anchored. Sheldon, for his part, merely stood there as if rooted, his intent stare not wavering a degree. "Maybe he's in the military. Maybe he was going to a party."

"He looks like he was coming from a paintball game," Sheldon noted. "And judging by the paint all over his chest, his team possesses the same relentlessly efficiency as ours at-"

Leonard, engrossed in folding the man forward and then extricating himself without toppling onto the couch himself, didn't see Sheldon's eyes go wide, all the tumblers in his brain falling into the place at the exact same moment.

He did notice, however, when the man's legs suddenly dropped and his body slid away from Leonard. Not ready for the shift, Leonard slipped, only avoiding falling on the man's face by turning to the side and falling right off the couch, clipping his shoulder on the table on the way down.

"Ow, Sheldon, warn me next time you're going to-" Wincing, he got up onto his elbows, only to see Sheldon halfway across the room, pointing at the man with a stiffened, shaking finger, his other hand clenching and unclenching rapidly.

"Leonard." Sheldon spoke with the rigid calm of someone who had just realized that the universe had reached critical mass and the wrong word could send it over the tipping point. "That's blood."

Leonard wasn't quite sure how to approach this. A dozen scenarios went through his mind, all of which ended either in Sheldon fleeing from the room screaming or the injured man being flung out an open window. In the end, he decided that blunt honesty was the best approach. "Well .. . . yes. Yes, it is."

"Do you know . . ." Sheldon swallowed, his Adam's apple swelling. He lost his voice for a moment and when the words returned his voice was heard as if pushed through an extremely narrow space. "Do you know how hard it is to get that stain out of the couch?" Before Leonard could say anything else, Sheldon dashed forward, hands fluttering upward like he was swatting imaginary bees, circling around the living room in the style of a mad comet. "Even if you use non-abrasive cleaners, the fabric is still going to fade that much faster than the rest of the couch and for years people are going to notice and ask, 'Why is that part two point three percent lighter than the rest of it' and you're going to have no choice but to explain about the day someone was bleeding all over it."

"Sheldon . . ."

He zipped past Leonard, locked into his maze, committed to the path of escape no matter if the walls were in the way or not. "From then on we're going to be known as the people who had someone bleed to death in their apartment. We'll be in the crime statistics, reported in the journals, people will do standard deviations based on us! We'll be the mean, the new definition of the norm."

"Sheldon-"

Back in front of the couch, he seemed locked in a staring contest with the pores of his palms. "It won't come out . . ." he said in a stage whisper, giving Leonard a maddened look. He blanched, his breathing going erratic. "I have to sit down-"

And he started to, in his usual spot, right where the man's head was.

"_Sheldon!_"

The snap of Leonard's voice was somehow enough to stop Sheldon, who froze into perfect stillness, his knees partially bent, a slice of matter caught between states.

Leonard took off his glasses and wiped at his brow. "Just . . . just relax for a second, okay."

Some semblance of calm passed back into Sheldon's otherwise serious face. "You should call an ambulance," he said, almost robotically.

The hint of a gameplan spurred Leonard into action. He cast one more look at the unconscious man, but his eyes kept drifting toward the wound residing in his chest. At least he appeared to have stopped bleeding, although that suggested two possible outcomes, only one of which was positive. Leonard was doing his best not to think about that, insisting to himself that was the man was still breathing.

"I tried," he explained, veering toward the kitchen counter. Automatically, Sheldon followed him, the desire to be away from the man overriding the oasis his spot normally represented. "My phone isn't working, something must be-"

Even before he had finished the statement Sheldon had his own phone out, being the type of person who would spend all night figuring out ways to more efficiently dial nine-one-one. "No signal," he muttered, eyes narrowing. He shifted a few inches. "Maybe I'm not standing in an optimal . . ." Getting the same result, he darted over a few more inches. "Hm. The satellite must be off its orbit and attained a new geosynchronous position." He looked up at Leonard. "We're going to have to go on the roof."

"Sheldon, we are not going on the-"

"No, you're right," his friend replied, fingers tapping the buttons and creating a sudden atonal symphony. "Start your car, we'll have to ride around the city in a grid pattern to discover the new coordinates." He thought about this. "Except the city isn't a perfect grid. How are your tires on backyards?"

"We're not leaving," Leonard said tiredly, making his way to the kitchen counter and wishing for perhaps the first time ever that they kept alcohol inside the apartment. "Not unless it's to drive him to the hospital."

The mention of the man seemed to snap Sheldon out of his theoretical problem and drag it screaming back into reality. His gaze tracked back over to the couch, as if pulled, and when they locked onto the man's prone form he nearly jumped, scooting over to join Leonard at the counter, moving sideways while somehow keeping his body facing the couch. He rubbed his hands together, close to his chest, and leaned near Leonard.

Sheldon whispered, "He didn't just fall down the stairs, you know. Not unless he was trying to use his body to smother a burning javelin first."

Leonard put both hands on the counter, swallowed heavily. "Thanks. I was trying not to think about that."

"About the hole in his chest?" Sheldon appeared shocked. "How can you not? It's impossible to miss. It would be like those Chinese astronomers not seeing supernova one eighty-five. Sure you might avoid spotting it, _since it only takes up the entire sky_." His voice rose up a bit on the last part, and when the sentence was over he held himself up stiffly, his body quivering slightly.

"I know, I _know_," Leonard said, putting his elbows on the counter and running a shaking hand through his hair. "We're going to have to take him to the emergency room." He pressed his palms against his forehead. "But we don't even know who he _is_."

"Well, it sounds like you had a chance to ask him before he lost consciousness completely." Sheldon slapped the counter lightly. "Gosh, Leonard, do you have no regard for social conventions? You should have at least introduced yourself."

"It's just going to be hard to explain."

"Tell them he's from the fifth floor apartment. For all we know, he could be. Much like us, the doctors probably haven't met them either." He peered at the man like a bird going out of style. "Just . . . can we move him? Please?"

Leonard straightened his arms, put all his weight forward and exhaled. "Yeah. We'd better. Maybe we can check his pockets for ID, get a name out of him at-"

"It's Joseph." Leonard was about to tell Sheldon to stop making up facts to suit whatever odd theories he had inside his head when he realized something very simple.

That hadn't been Sheldon's voice.

Gradually he let his gaze slide back over to the couch. To the man on the couch. To the man on the couch who now had his eyes open.

And was staring right at them.

"Joseph Brown," he said, quite distinctly.

"It appears we don't have to carry him to your car anymore," Sheldon remarked.

* * * * *

The man looked away from them and turned his face toward the ceiling. He appeared to be taking very deep breaths, as if trying to relearn respiration.

"Well," he said, "_that_ was fun." He swung his legs off the couch and onto the floor. "Now if you boys will excuse me . . ."

"Whoa, whoa, _wait_." It was Leonard who spoke, as the two of them went around the counter on either side to cross back into the living room, moving more or less at the same speed. "You just fell down a flight of stairs. You're not going anywhere."

"I did," Brown said, starting to get up but halting when the two men surrounded him, Sheldon near the arm of the couch, Leonard on the other side. "And I'm very grateful to your guys for not leaving me out in the hallway. So if it's okay with you I'll just go and see myself out-"

"I don't think so." Leonard folded his arms over his chest. "A minute ago you were completely unconscious." Sheldon was staring at Brown strangely, as if trying to add conflicting variables in his head. At his side one hand was moving, the fingers twitching in sketched equations. "You can't just get up and walk around, that's not possible."

"That's the amazing thing about science," Brown replied cheerfully. He stood up and even though his expression didn't change, a certain menace crept into his posture. "It makes the impossible come within reach." His eyes narrowed and Leonard found himself backing up a step. "Now, I think it's time I left."

"Your wound is gone," Sheldon suddenly blurted out.

All attention shifted to Sheldon, who reacted in much the same way as a reed holds up in a stiff breeze. Which was, poorly. Wringing his hands together with geometric precision, he said haltingly, "When we brought you in here, there was a puncture wound on your chest." Nobody else spoke and Sheldon tilted his head upwards a little bit, his eyes bulging at the edges. "That . . . that wound is now gone."

Immediately Leonard checked and discovered that his friend was right. The skin over the area was completely smooth, without any seam or mark to indicate what had once been there.

Brown only put his hands in his pockets and chuckled, a brief, disbelieving sound. "I think you just imagined it," he said calmly. "Guy falls down the stairs, you panic a little, start to see things. It happens. Especially when you're not used to it."

Somehow Leonard stood his ground, even as he felt his knees start to go. "Then why is there blood still on your shirt?"

"With a splatter area consistent with a blow that struck you with a rapid velocity from a level angle," Sheldon countered. At Leonard's odd look, he added, "_Junior Forensics_ was on the Learning Channel last night."

"It . . ." Brown looked from one man to the other, then back to the first one again. He scratched idly at his chest, as if trying to put some feeling back into the area. "It . . . okay, listen," he said rapidly, sitting down in a sharp motion. He plopped himself down in the corner of the couch, not seeing Sheldon's nostrils flare slightly. "I might as well level with you." He folded his hands together, placed them between his knees. "My name isn't just Joseph Brown. It's _Commander _Joseph Brown and I'm here on behalf of the Time Patrol, a quasi-temporal paramilitary organization. I'm chasing aliens."

"Really?" both men said at the exact same moment, scuttling in closer. Brown jerked back a bit, surprised and caught off guard.

"You're not supposed to take that seriously," Brown muttered. Then, blinking, he let himself take in the rest of the apartment, the various dry-boards with arcane physics equations, the rows of books and superhero paraphernalia, the constant quiet cooing of a multitude of electronics. "Oh no," he added, in a very small voice.

"Is it a secret mission?" Leonard asked, keeping his voice down and glancing around the apartment as if hidden eyes might already be watching them. "For the good of planet and to save humanity? Don't worry, we won't tell anyone." But in his head he was thinking, _Oh wow, wait until Raj and Howard hear about this! Especially after they rubbed our faces in meeting George Smoot at the _Modern Physicists Today _convention. We've got them beat now._

"It's not a secret, no, it's not a mission at all," Brown said, looking rapidly back and forth between the two of them. "It . . . I mean, gosh, I feel light headed. Was I just talking?" He shook his head, rolling his eyes back slightly. "I must have hit my head falling down the stairs. I probably have a concussion and boy can I say the darndest things then. I hope I didn't tell you anything that might give you a mistaken impression of me." He glanced over at Leonard, who was still staring at him in the same semi-fawning manner as before. Smiling uneasily, he pivoted on the couch and turned to Sheldon. That man seemed more of a realist, surely he'd think that this was all nonsense.

Instead, Sheldon bent down and said conspiratorially, "I understand if you don't want to cause any temporal paradoxes. It's difficult, playing with the fifth dimension."

Brown could only stare as Sheldon slid off the arm of the couch, hands clasped behind his back and pacing in front of him, rattling off facts with rapid efficiency. "You've probably received intense training on our customs and culture so that you can blend in without causing any suspicion. You look perfectly human, but if you need to you can heal quickly so as not to leave any messy corpses in the wrong time period. And you no doubt travel in a kind of time ship that can disguised as something modern so that nobody tries to take it." He was musing these without really listening to himself.

"Listen, those are nice theories and you all seem like swell people but I have to-"

Suddenly Sheldon snapped to attention, his eyes going wide as he clapped one hand over his mouth and pointed directly at Brown. "Oh my Lord," he said, his voice partially muffled. "Leonard." His voice came out as a little squeak.

"What is it?" his friend asked.

"The facts, Leonard. The _facts_." Sheldon removed his hand from his mouth and ticked them off one by one on his fingers, not taking his eyes off Brown. "He looks just like us. He travels in time. And he healed, or should I say more properly . . . _regenerated_." He looked left and right, then put one hand up alongside his mouth and whispered to Leonard, "I think he's a Time Lord."

"What?" both Leonard and Brown said at the same time, for different reasons.

"Quick," Sheldon darted forward. "Check to see if he has two hearts!"

"Don't," Brown said, pointing at Leonard, then twisting to make sure Sheldon kept the proper distance. "Don't even _think_ about it."

Sheldon bent down so that his head was nearly level with the arm of the couch. Resting both hands on it, he said, "Sir, you don't know how often I've dreamed about this, to meet one of you and be whisked off on adventures in time and space. To engage in a debate involving the finest scientific gibberish anyone can come up with. The places you could tell us about, the questions you could answer, it boggles the imagination." He pressed his hands together, tapping them lightly. "Although before we go into any of that, I do have one request."

"No," Brown sighed, "I'm not going to tell you the secret of time travel-"

"Oh, I'm working on that already," Sheldon said offhandedly. "You're probably working off my design, honestly. No, could you . . ." he waved his hand a little, frowning. ". . . could you just slide over a little."

"Sheldon, don't start . . ."

"Leonard, my breakthrough could result from my being perfectly at ease in the comfort of my spot. If he ruins the contours of it, then he might cause himself never to exist and cause a paradox that could rupture the fabric of space and time as we-"

"Okay, people, listen!" Brown stood up suddenly, sending both men skittering a few inches back. He ran both hands through his hair, doing his best not to grit his teeth. "This has been a delightful exercise in connecting the dots poorly." While he was speaking, Sheldon practically dove for his spot on the couch, ignoring Leonard's sharp glare. "But before we go too far off-track here, I need to make it clear, absolutely _crystal_ clear, that I am not a time traveller, I am not from another planet and I am definitely not chasing after aliens. All right?"

He looked from Leonard to Sheldon and back again, his eyebrows raised hopefully.

The two men exchanged glances behind him. Leonard put his chin in his hand and shrugged, saying, "Yeah, we can stick to that cover story."

"Absolutely," Sheldon agreed, nodding.

"No, I'm serious here," Brown insisted. "Kidding around is one thing but I don't want anyone getting ideas that there are aliens anywhere near-"

A light knock on the door sent everyone's attention whipping in that direction. A second later it opened and an unfamiliar young man poked his head in, his gaze immediately settling on Brown.

"Joe," he said, pushing the door open further to reveal he was dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt. A strange flashlight-like object was clipped to his belt. "I thought I had the Nirtorian hive cornered but it looks like they escaped into the wiring. We're probably going to have to seal the building off."

Leonard and Sheldon gasped.

Meanwhile, Brown just sat down on the couch and put his head into his hands. "Thanks, Tristian," he said with a sigh, sounding defeated. "I'm glad you're on it."


	2. Chapter 2

Yeah, it took only two chapters for me to start experimenting with the layouts. As with the last time I tried this, imagine the periods not being there and that's much closer to how it looks like on my computer (the dimensions are different here too, which led to some tinkering) . . . basically, its my attempt to visually replicate their conversations as they go down the apartment stairs without the narration endlessly discussing them going down stairs. This is more interesting to me, if more headache inducing to you. Sorry. If its any consolation, the conversation is vaguely funny at least.

* * * * *

Tristian took a step further into the room and seemed to notice Sheldon and Leonard for the first time. He took a good look at them, glanced at Brown and appeared about to say something, then stopped to close the door very carefully.

To Brown, he said, "I take it this isn't the rest of your team."

"No," Brown said from behind his hands, doing his best to make it sound cheerful. Lifting his head up, he brushed at his hair and said, "Boys, I'd like you to meet my friend and sort of colleague Tristian Jacart. As you can tell, the budget ran out during covert operations training so he never quite finished it."

Tristian narrowed his eyes and stared at the other two men. "Then who are these people?"

Both Leonard and Sheldon stood up, putting the couch between them and Tristian like a shield.

"Hello," Leonard said.

"Hello," Sheldon added, with a slightly drier emphasis.

"Ah, hello," Tristian said, a little warily. His hand was idly tapping the flashlight at his belt, as if finding the rhythm of it.

"Hello," Sheldon said again, followed a second later by Leonard's echo. The two of them glanced at each other in surprise and perhaps silently asking the other what to do next.

"Ah, are you operating out of here because they don't speak English?" Tristian asked, starting to walk around the couch toward Brown. Sheldon and Leonard moved away from him almost as one, keeping the same distance apart from each other as they did from Tristian. Brown merely stood in the middle of it and shook his head, as if he could detach himself completely from the scene.

"No, they speak it quite well, actually," Brown commented, still sighing.

Sheldon suddenly stepped forward, offering his hand to them. "I am Doctor Sheldon Cooper, PhD. I come in peace and hope that you enjoy our visit to our fine planet and do not wish to pave over us for a highway or cook us all in one of your giant planetary crock pots."

Tristian raised an eyebrow. "He's serious?"

Brown frowned. "You don't know the half of it."

Sheldon continued, "I would also like to point out that if you are here to steal us for your breeding colonies that hopefully you've done the proper genotyping to make sure that none of us have any recessive traits that may be unmasked when mixed with your alien biology."

Leonard jumped in front of his friend before he could say anything else. "Don't listen to my friend here, he has a habit of jumping to the wrong conclusions . . ."

"Oh? That's not what you said when you needed another Greek letter variable in your hypothesis regarding soft cosmic ray diffusion . . ." Sheldon said until Leonard waved a hand to shush him.

"So please don't take any offense to him," Leonard finished, clasping his hands together. "Because what he's really trying to say is . . ."

"Great," Brown replied, taking Tristian by the arm and turning away. "Listen, there's a snag with the backup team, so it looks like it might just be . . ."

"We'd certainly be willing to be your cadets for this mission."

Brown was about to say something else to Tristian when Leonard's words registered. Halting in mid-word, he turned back to Leonard, mouth still partly open.

"Cadets?" was all he said at first, drawing the word out until it was flat.

"I mean, if you have a better word for it, that's cool, too," Leonard said, backing away slightly.

Sheldon leaned in and whispered, "Good idea. They'll be less likely to cook us if we pretend to go along with their plan."

Brown nearly backed into Tristian. "Oh God, we need to get out of here."

"That could be a problem," Tristian replied.

"Oh, let me guess. The colonization has started?" Seeing Tristian's answering nod, Brown threw up his hands and said, "_Great. _This just got a lot harder. Why do we always get the fun jobs?"

"Probably because we keep volunteering for them. Or at least you keep convincing me to volunteer," Tristian noted, striding back toward the door.

"Yeah, yeah," Brown responded, following his friend. "You're just lucky I can't demote you for talking like that."

"That's the beauty of being freelance . . ."

"Wait!" Both men turned around to see, Leonard and Sheldon standing on either side of the couch, posed like they were about to dive forward.

"Yes?" Brown asked, cautiously.

Leonard tapped a fist nervously against his palm. "What do you want us to do?"

"Listen, guys, I don't think you quite understand what this is . . ."

"Oh, I think we understand perfectly," Sheldon interjected, crossing with rigid boldness over to Tristian and Brown. "You are in a situation where you need a properly sized team to combat the menace that is threatening to prevail. Right now there are only two of you and judging by your comments earlier you expected more than that. Which means that right now you are undermanned and thus ill-prepared to fight whatever it is that." He paused for a moment as if expecting them to bring forth some sort of counter, although he didn't look surprised when nobody raised any objections. "Now, while some might subscribe to the adage of 'The more the merrier', I think if anything _Lord of the Rings_ taught us that you can reach a point of diminishing returns and large numbers simply are not effective."

Leonard shook a finger at his friend, admiration on his face. "That's a good point, Sheldon."

"Thank you," Sheldon said humbly, before continuing. "I once conducted a meta-analysis of the various movies and books that involve teams of people and it seemed that even allowing for a wide confidence interval and genre threat variation that the optimal team size is four people."

"Right," Leonard said, delighted. "The _Star Wars_ proof!"

"Exactly." Sheldon smiled with thinly disguised triumph. "So, gentlemen, let us help you retake Endor."

Tristian shrugged. "He's right, you know. Two more soldiers were coming."

Brown scowled. "Don't you start, too. They'll be here soon enough, the teleport went awry and they came in on the other side of the state. I'm sure they've commandeered a car by now." To the pair of physicists, he said, "That's a real nice offer, guys, but even with two of us I think we've got it covered. It'll just take a little longer, that's all."

"But you said . . . colonization before," Sheldon pointed out.

"Yeah, and you didn't look happy when you said it either."

"That's because I had made dinner reservations that I'm probably going to miss now," Brown said offhandedly. Sensing that Tristian was staring at the back of his head, he rolled his eyes and added, "All right, listen, I'll level with you. You've got a minor alien infestation that's going on in your building but it's nothing to be alarmed about."

Across the room, Sheldon started sniffing the air, his face scrunched up.

"Sometimes the little buggers just get confused and go where they're not supposed to. We're here to just remind them that there's other places they can stay . . ."

"Leonard," Sheldon muttered. "Did you leave the oven on?"

". . . and once we tell them that I'm sure they'll see our way and leave peacefully. A Nirtorian hive is really quite harmless. It happens all the time and most people don't even notice-"

"Leonard . . ." Sheldon said, a little more insistent.

"Quiet, Sheldon," Leonard said irritably. "The nice spaceman is trying to explain to us his very important mission."

"But the lamp, it's . . ."

"What about the lamp?" Leonard snapped, only to turn and see a thin wisp of smoke was peeking out from the lampshade. "What the hell?" An acrid stench was starting to fill up the apartment.

"Wait, get back . . ." that might have been Brown but it was hard to tell. Tristian was already moving, without a word.

Transfixed somehow, Leonard suddenly yanked the shade off the lamp, revealing a bulb that was growing an angry red color, gradually bleeding into a much hotter blue. He found himself stepping back, as time began to stutter.

". . . _get . . . back . . . before . . ._" came the strobe-width voice.

And everything else that might have been said was lost as his ears were filled with a shattering _pop_.

* * * * *

There was one time in high school where his classmates convinced Leonard to play football. Most of the time he was able to pretend that he had asthma and walk the track, where he'd often find an unused sandlot and sketch out equations with a stick until he heard the period bell rang.

But that particular day the rest of the class had practically come over to beg him to be quarterback. _Just for one game_, they said, and as much as he tried to insist he wasn't suited for it, past the crowd he could see Melanie Nesbit watching him carefully, her blonde hair only partially covering her face and those blue eyes. And he thought about how he had seen her in the hallway with one of the team quarterbacks, laughing at one of his probably not very funny jokes. He had thought about telling her a joke involving the effect of lasers on supersolid states and hearing her pretend to understand and laugh and even better, _want_ to understand more.

So Leonard had agreed, for just that one day.

And in short order learned exactly what the terms "sacking" and "blitz" meant.

It was same feeling now as a force slammed into him with all the might of a runaway particle in the accelerator, knocking all the breath out of his body and putting the floor somewhere near where the ceiling used to be. All shackles of inertia broke on him suddenly and for a brief second he had the effortless sensation of flight, that all the forces acting on him were completely equal and suspending him in space with perfect poise. A grace he never knew he possessed.

Then his stomach dropped as the floor rose back up and he slammed into it hard, all too conscious of another weight pressing down on him, arms wrapped around him like bars.

Leonard hit the floor and spasmed, immediately trying to roll onto his side, all his natural defenses from high school kicking in as he tried to curl into a ball. Sound had reached a viscous state, floating to him as yawning notes in a frozen world. The weight that was on him followed him down and then just as abruptly bounced off his body. He was aware of a clashing sense of light and darkness rolling away but his eyes were still trying to adjust to the fact that he wasn't staring at the wall anymore.

"We're clear! _We're clear!_" someone shouted, although Leonard knew it wasn't his voice because it still retained some measure of control and calm.

The shutters that had fallen down on the world widened and split, revealing what had been his previously familiar apartment. There was the scent of burst smoke and crinkles in the air that might have been sparks, although it could have been an effect of blood rushing back to the parts of his body it had fled from.

A shadow pulsed near him and he flipped awkwardly about to see Tristian coming up into a crouch, fingers splayed and lightly touching the floor, his other hand reaching for the object at his belt. Half-delirious with confusion, Leonard found himself thinking, _He looks just like Luke-_

Brown's voice broke apart the notion before his brain could finish it. "That won't be necessary, Tristian. I think we're safe."

"What the hell was that?" Sheldon's voice seemed to come from very far away. Leonard picked his head up and did his best to get to his feet, his body aching from where it had hit the floor. As he got to one knee, the room opened itself back up to him, showing the apartment much as it had been before, with one key difference.

The light bulb was shattered, flecks of glass scattered all around the floor is a fan-shaped pattern. Some of them glistened, half-embedded in the wood. He tried not to think about that, or what he knew about explosive acceleration.

Across the room, Sheldon cautiously rose from behind the couch where he had ducked, both hands curled over the furniture like a pale Kilroy sign. There was some glass on the couch and he could see his friend's eyes scanning the cushions, probably trying to make sure that none had come to ruin his spot.

"Nobody move," came the taut command. Brown was standing defensively, the arm still held out stiffly. He appeared to be clutching a small device, keeping it focused on the lamp as he rounded on it, leaning in close and careful to examine it. What was left of the bulb looked like cracked and angry jaws reaching up into the air desperate to grasp anything that floated by.

"That won't be a problem," Leonard heard himself saying weakly.

Brown ignored him completely, instead creeping past, closer to the kitchen. "I see you," he said, to nobody that Leonard could see. He felt dizzy suddenly, the room bleeding into pastel versions of what he used to know, smeared without sharpness. The dark shape of Brown's arm was jutting up toward the ceiling. "You want to try something now, while I'm paying attention?" Even the room had stopped breathing, the only noises were the crisp whisper of Brown's voice and the gentle creak of his boots on the floor.

Leonard tried to see what Brown was staring at but it was just his kitchen, the same as it had always been. The counter, the fridge, the cabinets, the light overhead. The light that he kept pointing at. Tristian, nearby, was so very still.

"You get one chance at this." Why was he threatening the light? It was merely waveform particles, forever racing outward. "Do you understand that?" And how had the glass gotten so dirty? God, he was turning into a slob. "From here on, what happens is up to you. I want to make sure you know that." It was covered in Rorschach particles, shifting sunspots, swimming as rod-shaped bacteria. That was impossible. It was just the light. The squinting, sneering light. No, no, that wasn't right.

"Do the smart thing." The light that was staring back at them. "And _go_."

_The light that had a-_

His brain shut the thought down before it could go any further.

Then, someone lifted the gauze off the glow and the room returned to its normal brightness. Leonard blinked, not even realizing how much dimmer it had become earlier.

Brown let his arm drop, regarding the light for another few seconds before turning back to the lamp, one hand tiredly rubbing the back of his neck.

Tristian joined him a second later. "Well?" Leonard hadn't even felt him go by, the man barely stirred the air. Sheldon was watching them all with the vaguely panicked expression of a pentaquark that had just realized its state was merely theoretical and could cease at any observable second.

Brown made a face. "This is not good." He tapped the shattered bulb with one finger, watching as another fragment of it fell away. "They're accelerating into a hostile state. We're not going to be able to dislodge them easily."

"You expected it to be otherwise?" Tristian scratched at the back of his head, although his eyes were constantly scanning the room, perhaps expecting something else to happen. "This stuff never goes well. Even I know that and I'm still a novice."

"You've done all right so far." The other man sighed. "But I was hoping the colonization attempt was just an error on their part."

Tristian suddenly blinked, his gaze focusing on Brown's chest. "Wait . . . did you get stabbed?"

Brown glanced down to where Tristian was staring and looked ready to deny the evidence in front of them. But for whatever reason he changed his mind, saying, "Yeah, they got me upstairs. We didn't expect to run into each other and they lashed out. I had _thought_ it was because they were spooked." He scraped his foot along the floor, hearing some glass crunch underneath. "That's not quite the case anymore."

"Wait." Sheldon was carefully picking his way along the couch, fingers nimbly plucking at the leather. "Are you saying that an alien just made the lamp explode?"

Brown and Tristian both glanced at the remains of the bulb before turning back to Sheldon and nodding. "Yeah, pretty much," Brown admitted.

"Doesn't that violate some kind of inter-galactic protocol? Has war just been declared between our planet and theirs?" It was hard to tell whether he thought this was a good thing or not. "Are we now recruits in your time-spanning war?"

"Well," Brown replied, "it certainly isn't very nice of them. Thanks for the offer and all, but I think Tristian and I have got this one." Addressing Tristian, he said quickly, "You said they already started integrating themselves into the wiring?"

"The group I ran into was."

Brown cursed under his breath. "And where was that?"

"Down in the basement."

"And the ones I found upstairs were still corporeal, but that's probably not the case any more." He snapped his fingers. "Okay, we're going to have to go down there and see if we can find the entry point. Maybe we can gauge the extent of it. If it's not so bad we may be able to do just a simple ejection and have time for drinks afterwards."

"Okay." Leonard gathered his strength and struggled to his feet, hoping that he didn't sway or stagger too much. "I have a doctorate in physics, I can derive high level calculus even after I've been up for thirty hours and I can name every character that was ever in Superman comic for more than two panels . . . but I don't understand what the _hell_ you two are talking about."

"When did you derive calculus after thirty hours?" Sheldon asked.

"That after-party you skipped during the Niels Bohr Appreciation Conference." Leonard stared off to the side, somewhat wistfully. "It was a truth or dare game that got kind of out of hand." He laughed without making a sound.

"That's okay, sometimes I listen to myself and I really don't know," Brown quipped, heading for the door. "Now, if you'll excuse us . . ."

"Wait!" Sheldon said. Brown stopped with a skid of his boots, glancing back toward the other man with a slow burn. Tristian hung back a bit, looking for all the world as if he were trying not to laugh. "You're not going to . . . leave us here, are you?"

Brown bit his lip and looked down briefly, fighting the urge to bark out something unpleasant. "I certainly wasn't planning on bringing you _along_ . . ." he said, drawing each word out like he talking to a child.

"But . . . but you can't _do _that." Sheldon looked ready to walk right up to Brown and grab his arm, although the expression on Brown's face suggested that even the notion of that was a poor idea. "Now that we know what's going on, we'll be targets. We'll be in terrible mortal danger in the apartment. They're going to know exactly where to look for us."

"They're really not looking for you," Tristian pointed out.

"How can they tell?" Sheldon argued. "We probably all look alike to them. Just bags of protein and chemicals walking around. Although I may stand out due to my significantly greater intelligence." Across the room Leonard rolled his eyes and snorted. "What if they figure that out and want to whisk me away for experiments, clone me and turn me into some kind of weapon?"

"It's going to be hard to weaponize someone who decides what order to eat his food in by ranking the sizes of their amino acids," Leonard interjected. "You'll be the most high maintenance doomsday device ever."

"Galaxies would _tremble_," Sheldon huffed.

"Of course they would," Brown said soothingly. "But until that day comes you two will be fine here so while it's been fun and all-"

"Wait!" It was Leonard this time.

Brown whirled on him, the tiny device in his hand pointed directly at Leonard. "For the love of God, are you people _asking_ to get shot? Because my patience is really starting to run thin now."

"No, no, don't shoot," Leonard squeaked, skidding back a step, arms covering his head. When a few seconds went by and it was clear he hadn't been shot, he drew himself up bravely and said as firmly as he could, "If you don't take us with you, we'll . . . reveal your secret."

Brown raised an eyebrow. "My secret." He glanced at Tristian. "Do we have secrets? I didn't think we did."

"You kept my birthday present pretty much a surprise last year," Tristian commented.

"I like to think I help run a very open covert organization," Brown noted. "And you're welcome, I was very proud of how the pastry spread turned out."

"Yes," Sheldon said, stepping forward. "If you don't take us with you then we'll tell the whole world about your existence, making you unable to operate effectively on Earth ever again. You'll be scrutinized constantly, your every move tracked by government agents, you'll be hunted and feared and misunderstood by those who think they're better than you and see you only as a source for knowledge that they don't have the IQ to fully process."

"No, wait, I think that's us," Leonard said.

"I see." Brown pocketed his device and folded his arms over his chest.

"Yes." Sheldon twitched a little, as if part of his body was trying to make him run away. "All your plans will be completely ruined. Can you take that risk?"

Tristian and Brown gave each other thoughtful glances.

Then after a beat, Brown shrugged and said, "Sure, what the hell. Feel free to blab. Meanwhile, we've got things to do. Later, boys." He yanked the door open and popped through. Tristian at least took another second to smile pleasantly and wave as they followed his friend out into the hallway.

The door shut and the sound of descending footsteps could be distinctly heard.

Neither Leonard nor Sheldon said anything for a few seconds as the thumping footsteps faded away.

"Maybe they're . . . bluffing," Leonard suggested quietly.

* * * * *

....."Are you sure this is a good idea?"

..............."Leonard, which of us always beats the other in chess?"

........................."Well, you . . . but they aren't easy victories."

....................................."Regardless, it's probably safe to say that I have a far better grasp of strategy and tactics than you do."

................................................"I wouldn't go that far . . . your 'Sedentary Psychology' tactics didn't go over so well in paintball that time."

.........................................................."There is plenty of evidence to prove that the human eye does not focus on still objects at first."

...................................................................."Yeah, but laying down in the field on our backs?"

.............................................................................."We blended into their mental landscape perfectly."

........................................................................................"They just walked up and shot us."

..................................................................................."That is _not_ how it went."

........................................................................."Oh wait, you're right. First they laughed at us. Then we got shot."

..................................................................."There is no such thing as a poor idea, merely poor implementation."

........................................................."Is that going to be your excuse when this doesn't work?"

..............................................."Not at all. This time the plan depends more on me and less on hoping that you guys don't screw it up."

....................................."If I don't ignore that I'm going to wind up pushing you down the stairs, so instead I'll ask: just what is your brilliant plan?"

..........................."Why, we do exactly what they say."

................."Oh? Then what part of _stay in the apartment _are we accomplishing?"

.........."See, you're going by what they _said_ and not what they say."

................"Great, now you're into semiotics?"

.........................."When they told us to stay put it was part of a complex test of our mettle."

...................................."Mettle. You realize we're not gladiators, right? Or knights?"

..............................................."In science-fiction stories, the hero always tells his closest companions to stay away because it's too dangerous, especially when he first meets them."

.........................................................."So their telling us to leave them alone was actually a plea for companionship?"

...................................................................."A desperate and naked plea. They were practically shouting it to us."

..............................................................................."Right. That settles it. You're nuts. I'm going back upstairs."

........................................................................................."Hear me out. Look, they can't _ask_ us to join them. It's improper protocol."

..............................................................................."So the alternative is to be passive-aggressive?"

....................................................................."No. If they had asked us to go, the implication would have been that matters were perfectly safe. Thus, our guard would have been down and if ......................................................................something untoward were to happen, we would perhaps perish."

............................................................"And if we rush in on our own like madmen . . ."

..................................................."We'll be prepared for anything and ergo more likely to survive. And more importantly, be useful in the managing the last-second save that an adventure like ....................................................this will probably entail."

........................................."Plus if we come down on our own they won't feel as bad if we bite it."

..............................."Oh yes. I imagine that part is key."

...................."That was sarcasm, Sheldon."

.........."Truly? Normally your voice stays flatter when you're trying to be funny."

...................."What can I say, it's hard to manage sarcasm and crippling nervousness in the same sentence."

.............................."Leonard, Leonard, Leonard. Everything will be okay. We're following the exact template to survival laid out by _Doctor Who_."

........................................"Did I ever mention how much I hate it when you try to be comforting?

.................................................."Season one, episode thirteen. Two companions, Rose Tyler and Lynda Moss. Do you remember what happens?"

............................................................"I remember you crying when Christopher Ecceleston regenerated."

......................................................................"The only reason I let you watch it with me was because you agreed never to discuss my behavior during it. That clause was _very_ specific."

................................................................................"Okay, fine. I'm sorry. What's your point?"

.........................................................................................."Rose defies the Doctor's instructions to stay away and thus lives. Lynda stays put like he says and is forced to eat vacuum by the ...........................................................................................Daleks. See, we're in exactly the same situation."

................................................................................"You're right, this is definitely analogous to being trapped on a future space station that's being invaded by murderous mutants inside .................................................................................metal shells."

......................................................................"Maybe when we've won he'll take us inside his TARDIS as a reward."

............................................................."Don't start that again, _please_. He's not from Gallifrey."

...................................................."You're right, the planet is gone. Perhaps he's a Time Agent like Captain Jack. Although he hasn't flirted with us yet, to the best of my knowledge. You're far ......................................................better at picking up on that sort of thing than I am, however. You're just terrible at acting on it."

..........................................."Trust me, he's not. And thank God for that."

................................."The point remains, though. Staying somewhere safe will only get us killed. I think that's clear."

....................."Sheldon . . . do you think there's really aliens here?"

.........."Of course there is! Statistically speaking there _has_ to be intelligent life somewhere in the universe. It was only a matter of time before it wound up here and we were caught in the middle of a timeless war between forces everyone else's limited human minds can only barely comprehend. What other reason can there be?"

...................."Oh, I don't know . . . they're crazy?"

.............................."The light bulb definitely exploded, Leonard. And the Commander's wound really did heal. So we have to be logical about this and come to the obvious conclusion."

........................................"Which is?"

.................................................."They're not Cylons."

............................................................"Right. It's like we have the same mind."

......................................................................."Oh, I highly doubt that."

................................................................................."We're almost at the basement. I don't hear anything. Maybe they aren't there."

..........................................................................................."Then we'll have lost our only chance for survival!"

....................................................................................................."Only at the salvation of our sanity. Come on, let's-"

..........................................................................................."No, wait, Leonard, is that smoke?"

....................................................................................................."I hope not. Hey, stop pulling me!"

..........................................................................................."And that red glow!"

....................................................................................................."Ow, let go! You know, they're probably busy, Sheldon, why don't wait upstairs-"

..........................................................................................."Come on, we have to put ourselves in peril in order to live!"

....................................................................................................."I don't think that's a good _i_

.................................................................................................................................................._.d_

......................................................................................................................................................_e_

.........................................................................................................................................................._a-_"


	3. Chapter 3

* * * * *

"I guess it did need a little more fabric softener, then," Brown said, waving a hand in the air to clear it of smoke, even as near solid wisps were trying to curl around his head and creep into his eyes. There was foam on the shoulders of his shirt and resting placidly in his hair, although he made no effort to wipe them away.

Tristian snorted, replacing the flashlight-like device back on his belt as he crouched down at the back of the washing machine, moving it forward a little so he could peek behind it. "They're getting smarter." A damp green shirt was draped across his back, while a pair of red socks was plastered to his legs. "They either hid a rear guard that I didn't notice, or doubled back to leave someone behind in case we returned."

Brown scanned the room in a tight circle, idly kicking a blue dress that lay crumbled on the floor as he did so. "Yeah," he said, his eyes narrowed as he searched the walls. One hand tapped quietly on the table that lay in the center of the bare laundry room, the walls now splattered with wet spots and looking like chips had been taken out of them. "Normally they don't think that far in advance. That kind of worries me. I don't like being confronted with variables I didn't expect."

"I thought this job was nothing but unknown variables." Tristian craned his neck around the machine, frowning and running one hand along the wall, as if trying to read Braille.

"Yeah, but we do our best to plan for them." He picked up a piece of what appeared to be underwear that had landed haphazardly on the table and did his best to try and fold it. "The hives are intelligent but instinctual, you can give them a good poke and they go ambling off in a different direction to where they won't bother anyone."

"I don't know, you did a good job at adjusting to the situation earlier." Tristian grunted as he used both hands to drag the machine further away from the wall, sliding into the space he created as best he could.

Brown laughed. "That _wasn't _too bad, eh? Perhaps the first counterstroke to a homicidal rinse cycle that the world has ever seen. Though I was really only doing that to buy you time, since you seemed to have your own problems."

Tristian shrugged. "You didn't have to worry, it was under control. A little water hasn't hurt me before."

Brown glanced up, frowning. "At least the ceiling stopped dripping. If any of it leaked into the floor upstairs, we'd have more questions than I'd like at this particular moment."

"You think anyone is going to be miss that shirt crammed up there?" With his head tucked between the machine and the wall, Tristian's voice was muffled.

Brown sucked at his teeth. "Judging by the style, I don't think the owner is going to miss it. I'm tempted to take it back to its own era so it can be among its own kind again. It must be terribly lonely around here." Tristian laughed again, his shoulder bonking against the metal. "Find anything back there?"

"No, but . . ." he levered himself backwards, rocking on the balls on his feet while still in a crouch. ". . . it's pretty dark. I may have to move this out further."

"Just use the . . ." Brown put both hands together like he was holding the handle of a baseball bat. "You know."

"That's not something I'd like to go swinging around in a tiny space. Besides, everything tinted a shade of red is just as bad as everything tinted a shade of dark." He started to wipe some sweat off his forehead when he stopped and stared at his sleeve. Slowly, he put the other hand inside and with a quizzical expression on his face drew out a long train of fabric. "It's been a really weird day," was all he said, partly to himself.

Brown put his hand flat on the table, spread his fingers slightly. He glanced toward the door and back at the table again. A steady drip from above was gradually creating a small pool of water, the edges constantly oozing out. Soap bubbles could be seen forming inside, rainbows are refractions only when see close up. "Tristian," he said, still staring down, "those two guys that we met before . . . what did you think of them?"

Tristian had gone back behind the washing machine, shifting it out a few more inches. "They seemed nice enough. Considering you practically regenerated in front of them, it was nice to not walk into two people screaming."

He scratched idly at the table. Sometimes it was possible to see all corners, even obliquely. "Yeah, they did take it in stride. I was kind of impressed by them, actually. I got the feeling they'd really understand our lives."

With a bang the machine shifted out another inch as Tristian worked his way in further. The noise covered his muffled curse. "I don't know about you, but they're certainly welcome to switch places with _me_."

Brown chuckled quietly, dipping his finger in the sudsy puddle and sketching quickly drying letters across the wood. He kept studying the lights, as if expecting them to be something other than what they were. "Think about it. In a sense, we're living their dreams. Excitement and adventure, saving lives on a grand scale. That's us."

"You're right, some days I forget about how epic we are," Tristian commented dryly. "I'm glad you reminded me."

Brown stepped away from the table, gesturing with one finger at the air. "No, seriously, Tristian . . . imagine these guys. Since they were kids they were probably into science-fiction, reading about alien planets and the possibilities of the future, collecting toys and games to try and capture a sense of what they thought was possible. I'm sure they got mocked all the time, by people who thought they were being ridiculous, who believed they'd never grow up."

"Well, no offense to them, but arranging your Superman action figures in a reenactment of the signing of the Magna Carta isn't going to instantly garner respect. Even if I thought the attention to detail was kind of impressive."

"You noticed that, too, huh?" Brown said with a snicker. "But seriously, look at us. We're the proof that they were right all along. That the silly movies and the comic books might actually have some truth to them beyond what the science journals say." He stopped, slid his hands into his pockets and looked down at the floor.

"So what do you want to do . . . should we take a picture with them?" Tristian sounded a bit confused at the prospect of it. "I think we need to be famous before we can start autographing things."

"I don't know, they built that monument to you out in the Kalstas Cluster."

"For being a _mid-wife_." The washing machine had stopped moving and there were sounds of tinkering being done behind the device, small clankings and scrapings cascading in arrhythmic time. Tristian had gone down on his knees, crawling a little further behind it.

"Hey, I thought the impromptu C-section was quick lateral thinking. It stopped the riot at least." Brown bent down and scooped up a still sodden pair of socks, examining them before casually tossing them over his shoulder. "No, I'm thinking we take one of them with us when we finish here."

There was a long silence and then Tristian slid out backwards. In one smooth motion he sat against the wall, legs curled up with one knee near his chest. "Are you serious?"

"Why not?" Brown shrugged, an open gesture. "I think they deserve something for helping out. And it'd be nice to show this stuff to people who appreciate it." He gnawed on his cheek, tapping on his teeth with one finger. "The only snag is we really only have room for one on the way back."

"Hm," Tristian replied, narrowing his eyes. "How are we going to decide which one to take? What do you think? I felt the shorter one with the glasses had potential."

Brown bit his lip. "Yeah. I think he really got it. The tall guy, what was his name . . . Sheldon? He seemed like a smart fellow but sometimes he was just using big words to impress us."

"And I think he'd just fall apart the first alien he saw, to be honest."

"Oh, absolutely. Total agreement here, Tristian." Brown clapped his hands together. "Well, I think that settles it, once we find them we'll-"

His sentence was interrupted by a commotion at the other end of the room. Slowly, he turned around to see Sheldon dashing into the room with stiff legged agitation, eyes wide and face scrunched in fury. Leonard was being dragged along behind him with his heels skidding along the floor, glasses slightly askew on his face.

"I will have you _know_," Sheldon sputtered, "that I have not one but _two_ doctorates, I was the first fifth grader in my class to complete college, I came very close to constructing a nuclear reactor before my mother stopped me _and_ I was the first person to even _conceive_ of a string network condensate approach to resolving the black hole information paradox, so I will tell _you_, sir, that I have earned every right to use the biggest words that the English language allows and I will proudly use them regardless of your clearly limited capacity to understand them." He flushed, his face twitching as if swallowing something unpleasant and added, "If necessary I will make this very simple for you and use as few syllables as possible: I am much smarter than you, and I do not care if that makes you feel inadequate."

"Sheldon, _Shel_don," Leonard laughed uneasily, getting a better footing and peeking around his friend. "Don't listen to him, he's just . . ." his face turned very serious, ". . . please don't let him stop you from taking me."

"Well, hello again, boys," Brown said, folding his arms over his chest and raising one eyebrow, ". . . eavesdropping are we now?"

* * * * *

"Well, of _course_ we were," Sheldon sputtered, still having not shaken off the clinging debris of his own anger. "How else could we have heard your ridiculous assumption that-"

"If I said something to tick you off, it would draw you out of hiding?" Brown offered.

"_Yes!_" Sheldon responded. "Like we're a pair of idiots who would react emotionally to such a blatant falsehood aimed directly at our weaknesses." He laughed melodramatically, while Brown continued to regard him, his position not having budged an inch. "Why, an obvious plan like that would have to be-"

"-completely successful," Leonard finished, shaking his head morosely and walking toward the table. He leaned against it, pushing his glasses up and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I believe you chess lads call that one _mate_," Brown noted with a smile.

"You weren't planning on taking us with you, were you?" Leonard asked, even though the slant of his expression suggested he already knew the answer.

"Trust me," Tristian called out from across the room, "it's not really that exciting. Go once and you'll appreciate a nature walk that much more."

"Leonard," Sheldon admonished. "Don't miss the point entirely here. As usual, you only see the surface of things while failing to note the delicate underlying mechanics of the actual structure." Turning to Brown, his face brightened as he said, "So since you were lying before, that means you truly recognize my superior intelligence?"

"Its vastness astounds me," Brown said dryly. Sheldon's smile only broadened, until he saw Leonard's sharp warning shake of the head and his expression faded into a more quizzical gaze.

"Joe," Tristian said, most of his body now back behind the washing machine. "You may want to come take a look at this."

With a swift pivot, Brown darted over to Tristian, practically climbing on top of the machine in order to see what the other man was trying to show him. Leonard and Sheldon silently exchanged sidelong glances and then together began to slide toward them as well, moving very quietly.

Tristian was wedged in between the wall and the washing machine, having contorted his body so that he was turned slightly toward them, his back bent and flat against it. The posture looked uncomfortable but he didn't appear ready to complain.

"I was poking around back here," he said, shifting his weight so he could more easily grab a handful of wires that were leading out of the rear of the machine, "since this seemed to be the center of the fun we experienced earlier."

Brown rolled his eyes. "Don't remind me. It's going to take forever to get the smell of detergent out of my nose."

Something about his tone caused Leonard to look around the room, to _really_ look around the room for the first time. And at some point the familiar laundry room had stopped being so familiar. All the doors on the machines were wide open, gaping toothless jaws asking for sustenance that none of them could easily provide. Damp spots and water damage was evident all around the room, giving a speckled spotting to the wood and concrete, like a whale show had just gone on just beyond the walls and this was the splash zone. There was a distinct scent to the room that was a strange mixture of acrid smoke and boiled water crossed with the clean fresh odor of Tide.

There was also a neat hole drilled right through the front of the washing machine, the edges of it punched inward and blackened slightly.

"Sheldon," he whispered to his friend. "What happened here?"

The other man looked around the room with prim detachment. "Isn't it obvious?" he asked with some degree of knowing dismissiveness. "This is a war, and we're at the front lines." His eyebrows went up a little as his voice dropped. "And war is hell."

"Yeah," Leonard replied, stretching the word out and inching away from his friend. Nearby, Brown had bent down so that his head was behind the machine as Tristian continued to explain.

"Most of the wires looked fairly standard," he was saying, tapping each one with a finger. "Until I got to . . ." without touching it directly he indicated a single black wire that snaked from the rear of the machine into the wall. ". . . this one here."

"What's so special about that?" Leonard asked, somehow managing not to flinch back when both men turned to regard him. "I mean, unless you don't want to tell me, that's really okay too." He started to back away and wound up bumping into Sheldon, who was leaning forward and staring curiously down, eyes narrowed.

"Two things," Tristian said, twisting so he could address the group. "The first thing I noticed is that it has no viable connection to the back of the machine . . ." his hand traced the path of it, "or the wall. It's fused completely at both ends."

"So it's new then," Brown said.

"Looks like it."

"Someone is stealing power from the washing machine?" Leonard asked and instantly again wished he hadn't spoken. The way they kept staring at him gave him a feeling that he hadn't experienced since his fifth grade teacher had wanted everyone to give a presentation on sports. The snickers when he called soccer "the game you play when you have no arms" should have told him it was going to be all downhill. That's what he got for taking the team's comments at face-value.

"Not quite." Tristian pinched the wire, taking a small piece of it between his fingernails. "Which is the second thing I noticed about. It's not really a wire, it's . . ."

With a sharp tug, he tore a small chunk out of the wire, like pulling out a stubborn hair. Casting the fragment aside, he lifted the wire up a little so that the lighting was a little better on it, tilting it toward them. But even from this distance Leonard could see what was happening.

A thick liquid was oozing out from the gap, slowly but inexorably.

"Some kind of hydraulic fluid?" Leonard ventured, part of him wanting to get a closer look at the substance but part of him wanting to run from the room screaming and hide under his bed. This was getting creepy. He had been hoping for an exciting episode of _Star Trek_ and he was finding they were being cast as extras in _The X-Files_. And the extras tended to be the expendable ones. "Or maybe a type of oil?"

"No, it's organic," Brown said, stepping back to allow Tristian to get out from behind the machine, which the man did, wiping his hands together to clean them off. "Were you able to tell what's behind that wall?"

Tristian frowned. "There's definitely something back there but I couldn't tell, probably pipes of some kind." He started reaching for the device at his belt. "If you want, we can get in there and take a-"

"They can tap into the main electrical wiring for the building from there," Sheldon blurted out suddenly. Now all eyes were on him. Without even seeming to notice the sudden sustained attention, Sheldon continued, stepping past Brown and placing one hand on the wall. "A typical energy efficient washing machine can be somewhere between three and four hundred kilowatt-hours in terms of power usage. A model like this," he knocked on the metal, keeping his hand away from the smooth gash carved into the corner of it, "which was probably bought back when gas rationing was in vogue can probably use up to six hundred kilowatt-hour, drawing an incredible amount of energy that if not tapped into the main power line for the building would mean that every time someone decided to do their laundry, we would all be enjoying each other's company through the lovely ambiance of candlelight. Thus, instead of piggybacking off the breakers like every other bit of equipment in this building, whoever did the electrical wiring realized that they were running the mechanical equivalent of a tapeworm down here and patched it into the line that brings power from outside, reducing the amount of resistance on the line and ensuring that the local army-navy surplus store has a few more night-vision goggles in stock."

Brown looked puzzled. "A tapeworm? Wouldn't it be better to kill it than to give it even more electricity?"

Sheldon stared at him, his chin going up slightly. After a beat, he said, "Yes, but we like clean clothes. It's got us held hostage to its needs, I'm afraid."

Leonard stared at his friend almost sideways. "Sheldon, how exactly do you know all that?"

"I was attempting to run an experiment regarding the effects of nuclear radiation on common garden plants and to do so I needed a tokamak reactor. When attempting to siphon power off the line to kickstart it, I found that the majority of my energy was being diverted elsewhere. In tracing the source of the diversion, I found myself mapping out all the circuits in the building." He glanced toward the ceiling and a beatific smile came over his face. "If you stare at it just right, it looks not unlike a pony."

"Wait," Leonard said, "you tried to build a nuclear reactor in our apartment?"

"No," Sheldon said, with the patience of one speaking to a small child, "I tried to study the effect of radiation on garden plants. It just so happened that the experiment required a nuclear reactor. It's not like you can buy them off eBay."

"Plants . . . " something about that rang a bell to Leonard. "Oh my God . . . that's why you had all those flowers and potted plants in the apartment that week. I thought you were running a greenhouse."

"Don't be silly, during that time of the year with the tilt of the Earth we would barely get enough sun to even qualify." By this point Tristian had stood up, watching the exchange with a mixture of confusion and amusement.

"Should we stop this?" he asked Brown.

"Hold on," Brown said, waving a hand. "I made a bet with myself to see if either of them use a word that's more than eight syllables. Give it another minute."

"I gave one of those plants to Penny for Valentines Day!" Leonard nearly shouted, before realizing that he was shouting over something that was rather silly and taking a shrinking step back. At Sheldon's glare, he added sheepishly, "I didn't think you'd miss it."

Sheldon's gaze grew granite hard. "Then for your sake I hope that was one in the control group," he threatened in a near-whisper.

"Okay, so it's safe to say that _this_ . . ." Brown reached past Tristian and yanked the black wire out of the wall. It flopped to the ground with a rubbery spasm and immediately began to leak more of the thick fluid. ". . . doesn't need to be here." He stepped back, putting his hands on his hips. "But the damage is probably already done. Damn."

Interlacing his fingers, Leonard stared around the room. "It looks like you guys already did a lot of damage." Squinting harder, he suddenly realized that what he had thought was a splotch of paint on the wall was really a sweater that had become fused to the brick.

"Yeah." Brown grimaced as he spoke. "Sorry. That kind of stuff tends to happen more often than we'd like."

"What exactly is going on here?" Leonard asked, a combination of impish glee and utter fear running through him. On the one hand, he was thrilled that apparently aliens really did exist and that it was quite possible he would run into them, which would certainly give him bragging rights at the next Clyde Tombaugh Appreciation Society meeting. But, conversely, the prospect of marginally hostile aliens running around the building didn't excite as he thought it would, probably because scenes from _Alien_ kept replaying in his head over and over. Especially the scene where it came out of the air shaft.

"I thought we explained this already." Brown seemed distracted, rummaging around in his pockets. "You've got aliens in your building and we're trying to get rid of them."

"But you haven't explained _why_," Leonard shot back, choking down the rising sense of frustration. "What the hell would aliens want to do in a laundry room and why would they be running wires from the washing machine into the building itself?"

"Perhaps it's because they heard that the water around here gives all newly washed clothing the fresh scent of a spring meadow," Sheldon said in a singsong voice.

"Shut up, Sheldon." It was a bit harsher than he had intended but his patience with this was eroding rapidly. Leonard had never liked to think of himself as a man used to a routine, after all, he was a scientist and if science was about one thing it was taking what we knew and recreating it into fresh theorems and ideas. But too many shocks to his paradigm were starting to get him a bit frazzled. It also bothered him that Sheldon, perhaps the most anal-retentive person he knew, was not only comfortable with all this but seemed to be enjoying it. "Listen, I don't think it's too much to ask for some kind of explanation."

"It's too early," Sheldon pointed out, maddeningly calm. "If this was an episode of _Doctor Who_, we would have to get attacked at least twice before the Doctor would finally get a chance to explain the aliens' abilities before coming up with a clever solution to put a stop to their schemes."

"_Sheldon . . ._"

Brown sighed, massaging his eyelids tiredly with two fingers. "Okay, boys, you want an explanation, you can-"

Just then the lights overhead flickered, drenching the room briefly in slow motion strobe. A noise not unlike a backwards run moaning could be heard distantly, perhaps even below their feet.

"Uh-oh," Tristian said, staring up. As if in response, the lights clenched again, compressed like cancerous irises before returning to a newly sharp brightness. Leonard swore he saw tiny flecks of dirt swimming along in the pools of incandescence overhead, playing hopscotch in the filaments. But that was nuts. This whole situation was nuts.

Brown was already moving. "You can hear it as we go along!" he shouted as he ran out of the room, digging even deeper into his pockets. Tristian was past them in a flash, barely stirring the air as he dashed by. Seconds later the twin heartbeats of their rapid footsteps could be heard receding.

Leonard took two nervous steps forward. "Wait," he said, stepping up his stagger to a sprint. "Does this mean we're on your team now?"

"Don't push it!" a voice came floating back to them but Leonard was also on the stairs, taking a flying leap that got him up two whole steps, swaying but managing not to fall on his face. Then he was gone as well.

Sheldon, left behind, watched this all placidly, putting his palms together and drumming his fingers against each other. "Ah," he said, "that's more like it. _Now_ we're right on schedule."

Then with a howling flare, the lights in the room were suddenly extinguished.

Sheldon broke into a stiff-legged jog.

* * * * *

"As I explained already, Nirtorian hives are generally peaceful in temperament." Brown had taken the stairs nearly three at a time, catching up with Tristian easily. Now the two of them were at the front doors to the building, Brown having taken out a small beeping device that was shaped not unlike a jump drive and running it along the seams in the glass doors. Outside the world looked frozen, not in the winter sense but in the extreme brightness of an overexposed photograph, the flash that came and made everyone stop moving, even for a split second. "They have physical bodies, but those are pretty weak." He was speaking quickly, sliding down to the floor with the device tight against the door. "The big thing with them is that they have a physiology with an intense affinity for electricity."

"Like an electric eel?" Leonard ventured, bending down with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. This was a bad time to try and figure out if he had asthma or not. Tristian was lingering by the stairs, leaning against the corner but occasionally glancing up, head tilted as if listening for anyone coming down.

"Sure," Brown quipped, standing up and putting his hand against the door to rattle it just a little. "If a clan of electric eels lived in your outlet." In a blur of motion he dashed to the next door, tapping the device against the hinges and then checking it as if searching for readings. Shaking his head, he rapped the device against the palm of his hand and ran it along the door again. "Their home planet has only a small level of background electricity, just enough to keep them able to sustain themselves. But they have this tendency to latch onto passing spaceships, since when you're used to hanging out with scraps and a veritable feast comes along, hell, go for the feast. _Most_ of the time the crew realizes it before things get too far and normally it's not a problem. Put them back where they belong and off you go." He rattled the doors, then stepped back and folded his arms over his chest to regard the entrance.

"In this case, they must have not been paying attention and didn't pick up on it until they were too far out. So they just dumped them in the first place they passed by. Which happened to be here." He grinned, "Lucky you."

"Since when are we on a trade route?" Tristian asked.

Brown shrugged. "Damned if I know, unless it was a Flotesti run. I thought the Comouts were monitoring all movement in and out of the system, thanks to their natural xenophobic paranoia. Not that they'd tell us if they found anything. During those last shenanigans the only message I got was _Oh, things are as normal as ever, except for the fleet of ships containing murderous alien invaders hovering outside our city. But we've got it under control. _So who knows how someone got close enough to let the hive loose here."

"How is that even possible?" Sheldon asked, emerging from the stairwell. "Considering the sheer amount of telescopes and satellites we have scanning the night sky at every possible second, not to mention hordes of amateurs pursuing their own adorable little experiments, any moving object that cannot be readily identified is going to be posted on six different astronomy message boards and analyzed within an inch of its spectroscopic life."

"He's right," Leonard pointed out. "Remember when the Red Shift Conglomerate found that asteroid last year? Major_Ursa4 claimed it was just a smudge from a damaged plate and got into that pitched fission war with PulsarPal53."

"Oh yes," Sheldon replied. "It was finally settled when DoubleGRox swooped in with a radical application of Kepler's Third Law that proved once and for all we were staring at a truly heavenly body."

"DoubleG rocks?" Brown asked, a bit hesitantly.

"Galileo Gallilei," said Leonard, with a hint of exasperation. "Of course."

"Yes, do try to follow along, please," Sheldon added primly.

"And now you're saying a spaceship swung by this planet and dropped off a whole bunch of aliens?" Leonard gave a short laugh of disbelief. "We're just supposed to believe that?"

"You don't have to." Brown went back again, balancing on his heel with one leg lifted slightly off the ground. "But let me put it to you this way. Not that long ago, we fought an entire war out on the edge of this solar system. I watched explosions blossom like silent flowers in barren meadows, lights expanding so brightly that it would tear the darkest velvet and men ejected out into space to quickly achieve a graceful and frictionless slow ballet. Not a single person down here noticed." His voice became serious as his leg went back, poised and balanced. "You can stare at the sky all you want, you can cut it up into little sections analyzing each and every bit of it until your eyes are worn out. But what I've found most about people is that if they're not expecting it . . ."

His leg shot out, connecting solidly with the door, hard enough to create a loud _bang_ that caused Leonard and Sheldon to jump and the glass to bulge outward. The door stayed put, however, not giving any sign that it had just experienced any attempt at trauma. ". . . they just don't see it coming," Brown finished. He stood there, tapping the floor lightly with the ball of one foot, almost consumed with nervous energy. The lobby stayed silent, not even the distant clattering of someone taking too many heavy steps across their apartment ringing out. The echoes of the strike fell as disintegrating wings.

Then he pivoted and headed toward the stairs. "Come on, I'll explain the rest of the story on the way back to your place."

"Excuse me?" Leonard ran to the base of the stairs even as Brown was already halfway up the first flight. Tristian slid away from his corner and began to follow, trying to give the two of them a comforting smile. "What did you just do to the door?"

"Sealed it," Brown shot down as he rounded the corner. "Let's try to finish with one topic before we move on to the next, hm?"

"We need to keep everyone inside until this is over," Tristian explained, shooting his partner a look at his back that the other man didn't notice. "

"You're using the quarantine protocols then?" Sheldon asked from the rear of the group. When Leonard gave him a surprised stare, he added, "It's standard operating procedure for situations like this. You saw how they handled ET."

"Ah, I suppose," Tristian replied. "I really didn't think we had a name for it. I like to think of it more as just keeping everyone out of harm's way."

"But we're all trapped in here," Leonard protested. "With aliens."

"Not just aliens." Brown's voice was coming from the next floor, at least a flight of stairs ahead of them. "Aliens who are freed from their . . . oh no you don't you little bastard-"

There was a pinging, searing echo from up ahead of them and abruptly Tristian stopped moving, throwing one arm out to prevent Leonard and Sheldon from progressing. Sheldon swallowed and stared straight ahead while Leonard silently debated going back to the lobby, curling up in a ball and wishing this would all go away. Brown wasn't talking anymore and around the corner everything had gone silent. It struck Leonard how narrow the stairwell was, all those times they had tried to shove bulky objects up the heights, and how if anything came barreling down, there would no time to get out of the way. Or run. Their accumulated delta-v's would not be enough. Here, Newton was not on their side.

Tristian's hand started to reach for the object at his belt. "Joe . . ." he called out, with an even insistence. The enclosed zone caught his voice, tried to damp it down to the same dull color of the paint.

A light cough was suddenly heard. "We're clear," Brown called down. His voice sounded separated, like an interrupted telegraph, or a sickly modem.

Tristian motioned for the two of them to stay put, something Leonard had no trouble agreeing with. The man crept up the stairs, one hand still at his waist, carefully poking his head around the corner. There was a stiffness in his shoulders, less tension than an apt readiness.

A second later, he waved for them to follow. Sheldon went easily enough, practically bouncing up the stairs with a giddiness that Leonard rarely saw his friend possess. Not since Blu-Ray players had come out had he seen Sheldon like this. He wanted to stop him and ask what the hell this sudden interest was all about but there was hardly a moment to catch his breath.

He found Brown standing against the elevator door, eyeing the long corridor with its rows of apartment doors. Tristian was standing a few feet forward, hands on his hips. The area was empty and the only sounds were the ambient bangings of old pipes and distant lives. Each floor was exactly like the others, which Leonard used to find comforting but now was making him feel like he was trapped in a Moebius strip, running along the curve without ever reaching his destination.

". . . give them credit, they're learning quickly," Brown was saying. In one hand he was clutching a pointed device, much like the one he had whipped out in their apartment to threaten the light. His other hand was pressed to the side of his neck, and his breathing was coming with a steadiness that sounded forced.

"Did it give you any kind of warning at all?" Tristian took a few more steps into the corridor, keeping diligently close to the center. The lighting wasn't great but he seemed to be angling for a smattering of dirt on the floor.

"Other than lunging for my face?" Brown moved his hand away, wincing, and adjusting his shirt so that the collar covered part of it. Just before he turned away, Leonard thought he caught a glimpse of a rapidly fading burn mark on his skin, pointed like the flame tail of a jet, or a fractal gone horribly sharp. "Nope. But I will say, it's certainly taking the guesswork out of things."

"Wait." Leonard, against his better judgment, rushed forward to join Brown and Tristian. Sheldon came forward more curiously, hands lightly pressed to his legs, his head tilted to the side and examining the area they were all standing around. "You keep acting like these things are dangerous. Are they?"

"Lost on an unfamiliar world, surrounded by sights and sounds totally unlike those of their home, perhaps irritated by a different gravity and an atmosphere that might be caustic to their very respiratory system . . . they're probably disoriented and confused, forced to lash out like a wounded animal." Sheldon bent down, running his long fingers along the floor. _Him and his obsession with dirt_, Leonard thought wearily. "It's like that time when the _Sailor Moon_ convention accidentally walked into the Klingon _Jeopardy_ contest that was going on."

"Oh, right," Leonard said, laughing despite himself. Drawing himself up, he said in a deeper, mock serious voice, "_I'll take 'tlhap DoH vo' jIH' for five hundred, Alex._" He chuckled again, only to find Brown staring at him strangely.

"And you got the phrasing right," Brown whispered, shaking his head in what Leonard hoped was admiration but probably fell a bit short. "But we should probably get going before-"

"It's amazing," Sheldon said, tracing a circle on the floor around a dark spot. "The disintegration here is total." Finally paying attention, Leonard saw that what he had initially assumed was merely a smudge turned out to be a scattering of soot, the edges of it fanning out away from them, as if a small pile had been blown over by a strong wind and then smeared about. Sections of it seemed embedded in the floor, so that all the scrubbing in the world was about to remove it. The stretched outline of it suggested something to Leonard, common and familiar that he was yet unable to place.

Sheldon looked up at Brown, with the analytical slant to his face that he sometimes got when working on some theory on his laptop until two in the morning, when he would literally forget what time it was. "This has all the classic signs of an energy discharge, a phased laser blast designed to discorporate and reduce whatever the beam touches to mere particulates through the use of molecular separation and heat."

"I'm glad you're familiar with the theory," Brown quipped back.

"When I was six I had designed a large working version, but the heat from it had fused the grass in our backyard to glass. I had to tell my mother that I had planted special seeds so that we could have an endless supply of sliding patio doors." He folded his hands together and stood up. "Sometimes she still asks me how that business is going."

"You shot someone in the hallway?" Leonard asked, leaping back nearly a foot, his eyes locked on the device that Brown was still holding. _The laser gun_, he found himself thinking, trying not to think about how irrational that sounded outside of a _Star Trek _casting call.

"Sort of," Brown said, stuffing the perhaps-gun back into his pocket. "Don't take this the wrong way but I _really_ don't want to discuss this right now with you guys."

"But, hey . . ." Leonard don't know what it was about his voice that stopped Brown was darting further up the stairs but he stopped regardless. Which was at the point where words almost failed him. "If it's not safe, aren't you going to give us weapons?"

"He didn't shoot a person," Sheldon commented, staring almost straight down at the smudge pattern. "The blowback array is all wrong for a human being. It looks more like a . . ." he twisted his mouth curiously, ". . . like a waffle iron, oddly enough."

"You're not getting weapons," Brown insisted. "And we _aren't_ discussing this."

"In all fairness, Leonard, they probably didn't bring enough for everyone . . ." Sheldon turned to Tristian. "Although we haven't seen _you_ with a weapon yet."

Tristian just shook his head wordlessly.

"You just _shot_ someone," Leonard insisted, even as Brown kept walking toward the stairs, relentless as runaway inertia. Why the hell wouldn't he _listen? _He had friends in here, he had a friend that might be somewhere inside. And he didn't know where she was. "And we're in a building full of people that you just prevented everyone from escaping from."

"Not completely," Sheldon pointed out. "The windows are probably still viable and depending on the floor, the level of descent and the terminal velocity, a person statistically might have a-"

"Shut up," Leonard snapped, finally striding forward to grab Brown by the arm before he reached the stairs. "This isn't fair, what you're doing. We have to evacuate the building."

"No, we don't," Brown replied casually, casually snapping his arm to free it from Leonard's grasp and going up another step. "Now let's stop wasting time-"

Something broke in Leonard then, a creeping helplessness that needed some kind of outlet, the kind of equation that stared at him from the board for days, when every variable checked out, when every proof had been postulated, when every constant was maintained and _it still didn't balance_. "Dammit, what is _wrong _with you?" He grabbed Brown's arm, rougher this time, hearing a little voice in his head frantically tell him what a terrible idea that was. "I've got a friend who-"

That voice got much louder a second later when Brown, in a motion so smooth it made a yawn seem frantic, suddenly turned, twisted his arm and the next thing that Leonard knew, he was up against the stairwell wall, with Brown's hand tightly clutching a handful of his shirt. The man's eyes were cold and calm and very serious. And so very close. The light above was bent somehow so that his shadow seemed to be casting _him._

"Listen to me," he said, it wasn't an option so much as a necessity. "Because I want to be very clear on this. Nobody is going to die, nobody is going to get hurt. We're here to make sure that doesn't happen. I won't _let _it happen."

Tristian was at his side suddenly with a subsonic rustling, the kind you didn't hear until it was already too late. "Joe, let him go. He has a right to be scared."

"I'm not scared," Leonard said, wondering when someone had cranked the heat up so high. "I was just . . . being the voice of reason."

Sheldon leaned in, studying his friend with lidded eyes. "He's scared," he commented to Tristian. "Judging by his breathing rate, his pulse is probably easily in the triple digits, his fight or flight reflex is no doubt in the middle of a very spirited coin toss over what to do and extrapolating from the rather amusing anecdote his mother once told me about an encounter with a bear costume at summer camp, in extremely stressful situations he's prone to wetting his-"

"That's _enough_, Sheldon."

Brown glanced over to Tristian and met his friend's eyes before finally letting his gaze linger on Leonard for another few seconds. Then with a flick of his wrist he let him go, leaving Leonard to sag back against the wall, hands fumbling at his chest and doing their best to smooth the fault line wrinkles now embedded in his T-shirt.

"We try to evacuate and it'll be a mess." Brown was standing near the opposite wall, astride two steps and with his forearm resting against the wall. His voice had gone level but the sparked ferocity that had been evident earlier was gone. "It would just be confusion and impossible to coordinate without causing a mass panic. And if the hive decides to do anything during the process, we're screwed. We can't risk them leaving the building. No, it's best if everyone stays put." He looked over to Leonard and smiled comfortingly. "They'll be safe, I promise. All of them."

"You have friends here?" Tristian asked.

Leonard could only nod. Sheldon looked ready to comment but for once Leonard's stern glare got through to him and he kept quiet.

Licking dry lips and mentally reciting a Fibonacci sequence to keep himself calm, he said to Brown, "You . . . you never finished explaining why they're dangerous."

"I didn't, did I?" Brown absently tapped the device against his palm. He hopped down the last few steps so that he was back on the level floor, half-pacing and half-meandering. "I said before, a Nirtorian hive has an affinity for electricity. In the right conditions they can shed their physical bodies and exist inside currents." He had reached the dark spot on the floor, staring down at it with a tight-lipped expression, silently cajoling it to explain. "That's what they did here. And that wouldn't be a huge problem except they appear to have gotten inside the main grid for the building." The slick black tube stretching from the washing machine to the wall came to mind suddenly, and the small tearing noise it had made when Brown had ripped it from the wall. Like wet hair being yanked from taut skin, flailing as it looked for the missing connection.

"That's bad," Leonard offered, not sure if he wanted to make that a question or not.

"Well, theoretically," Sheldon said, "once inside the main grid, they would have access to the entire building and everything connected to it."

Brown snapped his fingers. "The nerdy guy gets right on the first try."

"Thanks." Sheldon looked extremely pleased with himself. Then just as quickly the delight drained from his face. "Wait, the person who comes up with the correct theory before anyone else is generally the first person to be horribly killed." He started looking up and down and to either side in sharp turns of his head, alert for impending danger.

"Don't worry." Brown patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. "In this line of work, the first person to be killed is generally the first one who does something stupid. And there's an easy way to keep from doing something dumb."

Sheldon looked at him, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. "Chart all the potentials and rank them accordingly?"

"No." Brown let the word slide out patiently. "You listen to what I say. I'm the professional. It's really that simple."

Tristian tapped Leonard on the arm. "Come on, let's go back to your apartment and we can figure it out from there. Hanging out in the hallway is just going to make people suspicious."

"No, hold on." Just saying it made his legs unsteady and he had to put one arm out on the wall to keep from toppling over. He hoped the quaver in his voice wasn't as blatantly evident as it sounded to his ears. "When they're in the electricity grid, what can they do? If they're just impulses racing along wires, why do you need to get them out so quickly?"

"Because I don't think they're going to stay in the grid," was all Brown said.

". . . _uh-wuh_ . . ."

Both Brown and Tristian drew themselves up sharply, the latter darting across the hallway like a logarithmic shortcut. "Joe, did you . . ."

"Yeah." The word was barely spoken. Brown began to walk across the floor, heel to toe, not even creasing the floorboards with a creak. "Get them upstairs, Tristian. Now." It was feathers dropped on a placid lake, puckering without noise.

". . . _wuh, uh, wuh-wurr . . ._"

"What is that?" Leonard whispered, moving closer to Tristian. Sheldon merely watched the whole scene, as upright as an obelisk.

Brown continued to walk down the hall, his head turning from left to right, scanning for the source. He was a black-clad punctuation mark, a sliver of wound string dancing in sinuous straightness. Looking for the sound.

". . . _er-ah, wuh, ah wurr uh . . ._"

The sound.

". . . _wuh ay air . . ._"

The sound that was coming from behind the door of apartment 3G.

Leonard felt his pulse quicken, the air around him reeling in its own stillness. "What is that noise?" The question begged for an answer that reeked of normalcy. "It's just someone snoring. Just a . . . little sinus problem and we should probably go before they wake and notice us all standing in the hallway." He noticed that Brown had palmed his pointed device again, the one that he suspected wasn't exactly a doorstop. "Armed."

"Why are they still here, Tristian?" Brown hissed. He was closing in on the door, the arm holding the weapon bent, the laser held close to his chest.

"What are you doing?" Leonard asked, somehow dodging Tristian's grab. Brown was at the door now, ignoring everything else. "That's someone's apartment, you can't go in there."

". . . _wun ayr arr eh . . ._"

"You should at least knock first," Sheldon said.

"No, he _shouldn't_, he should get away from-"

"Right," was all Brown said, and he kicked the door in, moving so fast that the crash of it banging open barely had a chance to settle before he was going in, the wood splintering at the edges, the doorknob tilted crazily and the door itself swinging open rapidly to bounce against the wall. All the damn elementary laws of motion.

"Oh my God, stop-" Leonard shouted, hearing the busted door like the time he had dropped an entire tray of test tubes in lab, the way the tinkling of the broken glass had seemed to go on forever, until every person in the room had heard it and started staring. Any second all the other doors would open and everyone would be standing out in the hallway, the two of them and a pair of lunatics trying to break into someone's apartment. But like the falling rockets in a world of skewed Doppler effects, by the time you heard the noise coming it was already too late. He called out, but gravity had already drawn it down.

_Except_. Brown did stop.

". . . _wurrrrr hairrr . . ._"

In the doorway he was standing, as if afraid to cross the threshold. Leonard somehow found himself right behind him, just to the right of his shoulder. With the angle of the broken door and Brown in the way, he could only see a little bit of the room, the lopsided triangle that all the sides together made. It looked like a lot like his apartment, the basic shape of the room. The only piece of furniture he could make out clearly was an end table.

That's where the sound was coming from.

". . . _woonneeee ehharrrr . . ._"

Not from the table itself, but from the small walkie-talkie like device resting on it. _A baby monitor_, Leonard thought, remembering seeing the box for one in Penny's apartment as a gift when a friend of hers had a baby shower. Sheldon had offered to rig it up so that it would have video as well and perhaps even play clips from YouTube, until Penny had to patiently explain that it was just fine the way it was, and the baby didn't need to use it to browse message boards or watch videos. Leonard still swore that Sheldon almost went out and bought one himself, just to see if he could do it. Sadly, he probably would have helped. It had only been a matter of soldering a few wires, really.

". . . _ehharrr wuhhhhh arrrrrrr_ . . ."

"It's just broken," he heard himself say. "There's probably a . . . a short in it somewhere and it's just . . . it's feedback." Brown didn't answer, keeping his eyes fixed on the monitor. "Isn't it?"

"You wanted to know what the problem was," Brown said and his voice was so quiet, the sound of paper being slid under a crack, scribbled with news that you needed to know. If only you thought to look down. If only you just thought to look. "Why it was bad if they got out of the grid."

". . . _wah wah wheeerrrrrrr . . ._"

_That sound_. It wasn't feedback. The noises were repeating too much, the same basic raw phrases being recycled over and over again with only mild variations. He had heard this type of thing before. At the lab? No. During one of the game nights? No, that wasn't right either. Where?

". . . _wher wher wheeerrrreeeee . . ._"

And then it hit him. That same friend of Penny's, months later, had somehow gotten her to watch her baby. But Penny had to go for an audition and somehow convinced Leonard to stay with the baby for a few hours. It hadn't been so bad, he put the kid right next to Sheldon and told him that the mom wanted him to get an early start on his physics education. He was two hours into an explanation of how to reconcile special relativity with nonrelativitistic fluid equations before he realized that the kid had been asleep for most of it.

But before he had taken that nap, the kid had been babbling away. Making all sorts of small child noises, the kind that any infant makes when trying to mimic their environment. Elementary aspects of learning behavior.

It was exactly the sound the monitor was making.

". . . _wheeerrreeeeeee . . ._" There was a sudden cough and burst of static. "_Whereee . . . arreee . . ._"

"Because they can get out. And get into anything else." Brown took a step into the room.

". . . _arree the ruh-ruhah, rest . . ._"

"Anything connected to it." From behind Leonard felt Tristian grab him by the arm, rougher this time. The view started to slide away, even as Brown started to raise the arm holding the device, pointing it at the monitor.

". . . _wherrr areee t-uh the resttt . . . cuk-can feeeelll them . . ._"

"Anything."

". . . _anddd yooouuuuu . . ._"

"Get them _out_ of here," Brown ordered. "Even if you have to break their legs to do it."

"Won't be necessary," both of them said at the same time, even as Tristian started to drag them down the hallway back toward the stairs. Brown was turned sideways now, his arm held out stiffly.

". . . _can seeeee yooooouuuu . . ._"

"We'll meet you back at the apartment," Tristian shouted, practically flinging them up the stairs. The room was out of view but Leonard could see hear the voice in the monitor, creeping down the hall like escaped carbon dioxide gas.

". . . _annddd youoooo . . . youooouu woooontt beeee abbleeee toooo . . ."_

A low keening whine started to build up from nowhere. Leonard, despite himself, started to scramble up the stairs, the lifts now something unfamiliar and insurmountable suddenly, a mountain that he had all the wrong equipment for.

". . . _toooooo stoooopppp usssssssssss-_"

He cast one last look back to see a flash suddenly burst from the doorway, a new sun being laid in a fusion knotted egg. And then he could see nothing else because he had already thrown himself around the corner of the landing, charging forward on his hands and knees as fast as the residual air resistance would allow.


	4. Chapter 4

* * * * *

"This is insane!" Leonard declared, pacing around his apartment with an intensity he hadn't possessed since the "Race to Absolute Zero" competition a year or so back. That had been a long night, especially when they accidentally shattered Gablehauser's desk with liquid nitrogen and were forced to find an all-night furniture place in an attempt to replace it. Raj had eventually saved the day, but wouldn't explain how, merely looking shell-shocked and saying, "It wasn't worth the dowry." A curious sort, just for once Leonard had thought it wise not to ask questions.

Not now, however. While Sheldon watched him from the safety of the couch with the intensity of someone witnessing atoms fissioning for the first time, Leonard did his best to not sound like he was ranting like a madman. "What the hell have you people gotten us into?" Bits of glass crunched under his feet, the parts of the lightbulb they hadn't gotten around to sweeping up yet. "You've wrecked the laundry room and . . . and our lamp is broke and there's _aliens_ in the wires and . . . your friend is off _shooting _things in people's apartments-"

"Well, _excuse_ me Captain Exposition," Sheldon said, hands on his knees and his posture straight. "Thanks for the update but don't you think you're overreacting just a little?"

Leonard stopped and gave his friend an exasperated look over his glasses. "You're right, Sheldon," he said sarcastically. "I didn't react this way the last time aliens invaded. Maybe work just has me a little on-edge lately."

"See? There's always an explanation. If you applied the scientific method to this instead of engaging in a one-person staging of a frightened mob, you'd be able to see that this is easily solvable."

"Oh?" Leonard folded his arms over his chest. "And how do you propose we do that?"

"Why, climb down the elevator shaft and cut the power to the entire building." Sheldon stared back owlishly, as if not understanding why he had to keep explaining why round pegs went into the circular holes.

"Cut the power that's . . ." Leonard snapped his fingers. "That's actually a good idea, Sheldon." He kept talking before the other man could say "naturally". "If these aliens are in the system, then if we black out the building they won't have anywhere to go." His eyes narrowed. "I'm just confused why we have to go down the elevator shaft."

"It's quite simple." Sheldon folded his hands into his lap. "We have been put into a situation that is quite extreme in its degree of peril. And if we have learned anything from Superman, it is that the bigger the stakes, the more extreme the measures that are required to bring about a satisfying resolution. Need I go on?"

Leonard thought about this, and then waved one hand. "You know what, sure. Go for it. I'm curious as to where you're going with this."

"Let me put it this way." He stood up and walked over to the bookshelves against the wall. He waved his fingers for a second then delicately selected a book. He glanced back at Leonard over his shoulder. "I kept this here in case a situation like this over arose and we would need the advice of those who with more experience." Turning the book, he opened the front cover, revealing it to be hollow. Tipping it forward carefully, he let a few sharply bagged and boarded comics drop into his hands.

Taking it back the couch, he spread them out like playing cards. Leonard came closer, seeing that each one was a Superman comic, sealed inside in mint condition, as glossy as the day they were released.

"You see, what I did was select a sampling of issues that would reflect the variety of menaces we might encounter on this earth." He took the first one, held it out flatly, and let it rest on his palm. "Here we have Superman facing the relatively tame menace of the Ergomax Horde, an unstoppable army of men who could not be dislodged from their paths. They seemed very formidable until he discovered that their main weakness was they were incapable of leaving the ground. So Superman merely tricked them onto a patch of desert, picked up the entire patch of land and deposited them on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean."

"Why didn't he just throw them into space?"

"_Leonard._" Sheldon looked scandalized. "They were clearly oxygen breathing beings that would die when exposed to the merciless vacuum of space. Superman does not kill, you know that." His voice took on a slightly haughty tone. "If you're not going to take this seriously, then I think we are done here."

"No, no, I was just kidding, Sheldon." Leonard rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a migraine coming on. "But why don't we just skip right to the conclusion of your analysis."

"Well." Sheldon, mollified, continued to sift through the comics. "Without going into specific analyses of each issue, what is clear is that the even when a simple solution might suffice, if the threat is complex then the solution will not work until it is complicated. Thus, while you might wonder to yourself why Superman doesn't use his superstrength to fling the warship out into space instead of having to go inside the spacecraft and navigate their Kryptonite laced corridors to get to the mainframe and shut it down . . . reading the issue it is abundantly clear that there are many good reasons for such an approach."

"Other than the fact that the comic would be four pages long otherwise?" Leonard wondered.

"No." Sheldon gave his friend a disapproving look. "In these instances a straightforward approach is only destined to failure. It's the way that the Universe is set up."

"What about Occam's Razor?"

"That stops applying when aliens begin appearing." Carefully placing the comics back inside the fake book, he said, "So while the magnitude of the threat is not so much that we would need to erect a giant antenna on the roof and then remotely seed clouds to form a lightning storm that would channel electricity into the building and overwhelm said aliens . . . we simply cannot walk downstairs to shut off the main power. We'd need to put more effort into it. It's really that simple." He set the book gently down on the table and stood up. "So the only question remains is which of us is going to slide down the shaft."

Leonard's eyes widened. "The hell if I'm going to . . ."

Sheldon smiled. "Oh, good! That's exactly the right approach. You're getting the hang of this."

"Um, excuse me . . ."

"Volunteering by denial." Sheldon tapped his friend with one hand on the shoulder. "You see, whenever a task needs to be accomplished the person who generally makes the sacrifice at first refuses to volunteer. Adamantly insists he will not go, just like you're doing. It's only when his friend decides to go in his stead that he realizes the selfishness of his decision and switches at the last second, knowing that he has less to live for and should be the one who takes the risk."

Leonard quirked an eyebrow. "Wait, I have less to live for?"

"Be logical about it. At my current life expectancy, I have years of genius and brilliant discoveries ahead of me. Your peak passed some time ago and at best you'd only have a sad old age to look forward to when you'd hold your old theories to yourself like a comfortable blanket, once in a while stumbling out of your lab to tell the young whippersnappers to keep their unified field theories off your doorstep because it was disturbing your sleep." He drummed his fingers together. "No, it has to be you for this to work. But, we do have to follow procedure so . . ." he tilted his head to the ceiling dramatically. "Yes, Leonard, I suppose it's best you stay behind. There's no sense in risking both our lives." He turned to head toward the door. "Give my fond regards to Penny."

"Really?"

Sheldon stopped. "No, not really. You won't be around long enough to give any regards. Chances are once you're gone she'll admit to having a deeply hidden attraction toward you, merely to sweeten the irony of your loss. I'll try to think of something nice to say about you while she's staining my shirt with the salt of her tears in some bizarre female ritual of mourning." He tapped his chin, considering. "How does _In a world crammed full of dairy products, he was bravely lactose intolerant _sound?"

Leonard just shook his head in shock. "You really are insane."

But Sheldon just keep heading toward the door. "I'm afraid it's the only option, Leonard. Don't try to stop me, though, even if you feel that your life is but a speck in terms of value to mine. It's all for the best." His hand was almost on the doorknob, his posture one of a man resigned to his fate.

"It's not going to work, you know," Tristian called out from across the room.

Both of them turned to see him standing on the landing, finishing drying his hands with a bath towel. He looked oddly normal, just a passing guest who needed to use their bathroom, not at all possessing Brown's military mannerisms and ability to rattle off facts about aliens quicker than the final round of a _Babylon 5 _quiz show. At least when he was standing still, every time he moved there was a certain fluidity to his progress that lay somewhere between a dancer's sweep and the whirling grace of an escaped gas molecule.

"It won't?" Sheldon asked. Then his eyes widened slightly. "Oh, you mean that _Leonard_ won't be the one making the sacrifice."

"I could have told you that," Leonard muttered.

"I should have realized, it's going to be you, isn't it? Your whole life you've had nothing but a supportive role and this is finally your chance to make a difference, to step forward and be the hero that you were always meant to be." Leonard could swear that Sheldon almost had tears in his eyes.

"Ah, no, I don't think that's the case," Tristian replied, stepping further into the room. "Besides, last week I had to lure away a squad of homicidal robots by myself to cover everyone else's escape, then take over a spaceship so I could get away. I'm really not about to go looking for trouble." He walked over to the scattered pieces of broken glass and began to carefully pick them up off the floor, placing them in a small pile on the end table. "What I meant is that shutting the power off isn't going to do any good. The hive at this point is converting themselves to electrical impulses and acting as their own power supply . . . cutting the power just gives them free reign over the wires. They'll still be able to move about without any trouble."

Sheldon sagged against the door. "Oh thank goodness. I really didn't think Leonard was going to be able to grow a pair and save us all." Leonard, to his credit, thought it best not to respond as his only answer would have involved wrapping his hands around someone's throat.

Turning to Tristian, he said, "What exactly is going on, though? Do they have some kind of plan here?" He left the question of _Do _you_ have some kind of plan here_ unspoken.

"I don't know for sure." Tristian poked at the small collection of glass particles resting in his palm, as if studying them for a reason. "I don't know much about Nirtorian hives, this is more Joe's territory. From what I _do_ know, they tend to merely nest in electrical systems but generally don't put up this much of a fight. A little resistance will typically send them running for easier places."

"But they're not going to . . . hurt anyone, are they?" He remembered when he had first met Brown and the man small hole the man had been sporting in his chest. He had gotten better from that but nobody else in this building would. What if . . . he tried not to let the thought go any further. But he really wished the phones were working so he could call her. Was she at work now? For some reason he thought her schedule had changed recently. _I can derive Planck's constant in ten different ways but I can't remember when one of my best friends works. I suck_. She couldn't be home though, all the running around would have made her curious and she would have stopped by. Unless she was sleeping, which she did often and fairly soundly.

"I doubt it." Tristian gathered up the last few pieces and sprinkled them onto the table, wiping his hands together as he stood back up. "At least, they better not," he added, in a dropped tone aside. "No, I think the only reason they're coming after us is that they sense somehow that we can do something about this. Everyone else really can't hurt them."

With a rattling click, the door suddenly opened, forcing Sheldon to spring away in a flurry of arms and legs. "I'm not doing so good a job of it either," Brown commented, slipping in and shutting the door behind him. There was a tear in his sleeve near the shoulder, with a dark line written across his skin, although there wasn't any bleeding. "I went and searched the rest of the apartment, just to see if I could figure out the extent of their infiltration." He brushed at the fading scar on his arm. "Turns out the family doesn't eject the DVDs from the player when they're done with them." He frowned. "We may have to replace that when we're done here."

"So where are we at with this now?" Tristian asked.

"Looks like the hive is working its way up the building grid. It's probably too late to stop them from infesting the lower floors but we have to figure out something to at least keep them contained down below." Brown pulled at his hair, looking exasperated. "This is unusual, I don't know why they're being so aggressive about this. But they're starting to get into everything and people are going to begin noticing soon."

"That shouldn't be too terrible," Sheldon noted. "As a super-secret military organization, you control the media, right?"

Brown smiled sarcastically. "You're all so cute. Don't ever change." Stalking across the room, he said to Tristian, "We're going to need to create some kind of disruption field so that they can't get any further. And quickly because they're learning their way around here fast."

There was a sudden light knock at the door.

"Nobody answer that," Brown ordered.

"That shouldn't be a problem," Sheldon said, sniffing. "All our friends just seem to walk in without giving any prior notice anyway."

"Well, wait," Leonard said. "It could be someone we know." The knock came again, a little louder this time and a bit more insistent, low to the ground like it was coming from somebody short.

"Oh, please," Sheldon snorted. "She's not going to come to you in a time of utter peril. If anything, evolutionary instincts would have her gravitate toward the nearest alpha-male for safety and comfort, while you're more like the . . . gamma-male."

The knock came again. It couldn't be Penny, she didn't normally knock that many times without checking to see if the door was open. Unless she thought they were sleeping or otherwise occupied, there were plenty of times when they were both at work at their desks and could let a bomb drop outside before they noticed something was wrong.

"She?" Brown asked. "You're not going to turn a crisis into an opportunity to ask for a date now, are you?" He moved to one side of the door, as if flanking it. "Anyway, just let it go. Even if it is someone you know, I'm sure they'll get over it. You're smart, make up an excuse later."

_Bang._ Once more.

"What if it's a delivery?" Leonard asked, instantly regretting the question as soon as the full brunt of Brown's stare hit him.

"Then they'll come back _later,_" he said, through gritted teeth. "Besides, nobody can get into the building."

"Which implies that it would have to be someone who knows us," Sheldon said. "After all, who else would bother knocking on our door? It's not like Leonard has any friends."

_Bang. Bang_.

Brown slinked nearer to the door, motioning to Tristian. "On my mark, pull the door open and whoever it is maybe we can the drop on them." Tristian nodded, taking the long way around past the couch.

"Oh, this is _silly_," Leonard said. "I don't know what movies you guys have been watching but it's obvious that the aliens are never the ones who knock. You always _think _it might be . . ." as it turned out he was nearest the door, reaching it just as he completed the sentence, "but after everyone gets all worked up and ready it turns out that it's just the-"

Before anyone could stop him, he yanked the door open. Part of him was worked up and braced but more for an annoyed Penny, wondering what the hell was taking him so long to answer the door. She didn't have Sheldon's brain bursting stare down yet, but she was getting better at it.

But as it turns out, there was nobody there. The only thing he found himself staring at was Penny's apartment door, the first sight that greeted him every day when he left for work.

"Leonard," Brown said in a level voice. "Please back away from the door."

"Oh come on, let's not get all paranoid," Leonard said with a laugh. "There's nobody here except . . ."

That's when he heard the tiny revving at his feet.

"Ah." It was a radio controlled car, the NASCAR type, all red stripes and wide fins. The type he had raced many times as kid and as an adult, later converted for pod racing on those nights when they could sneak into the lab and play with the superconductors. Sitting in the doorway. "See, guys, it's somebody playing a practical joke, that's all. Probably some kids who left-"

Brown was closer but Tristian was already moving.

With a roar that rose rapidly in pitch, the car suddenly squealed across the distance to Leonard, nearly lifting off the ground as it picked up speed. Tristian grabbed Leonard under the arms and pulled him into the air, the two of them staggering backwards as Leonard's sudden need for self-preservation kicked in, set by many years of football players picking him up in much the same way.

"_Hey!_" Sheldon screamed as the car beelined toward him, the tires almost smoking as it peeled across the room. With a grace that belied his lanky frame, he leaped straight up into the air, flailing for just a second before someone flipping himself over the back of the couch.

Brown was already running after the car, reaching inside his pocket. "Everyone just stay away from it!" Screeching, it spun, skidding as it did so and began to streak back toward Tristian, who was having trouble controlling the struggling Leonard.

"Let me go!" he shouted, kicking his legs futilely, even as Tristian did his best to skip away, trying to dodge and zigzag, hearing the car coming even closer. Brown dove for it but it increased speed and he stumbled, nearly careening into the wall, even as his hand went to a bookshelf to brace himself. "I swear, I'll have your homework by Friday just don't throw me in the-"

"Sh," was all Tristian said, kicking the door shut and diving to the side, a spare second before the red blur that was the car slammed right into it. A massive thud was heard, counterpointed by the sound of cracking wood. Overbalanced, Tristian toppled to the floor, somehow managing to hold onto Leonard in the process.

"What part of stay away is everyone failing to understand?" Brown muttered, leveraging himself of the wall and easing himself carefully into the open.

"It's not exactly giving us a say . . ." Tristian shot back in a strained voice.

The car, meanwhile, had crookedly backed away from the door, leaving behind a sizable dent that was ringed with spiderline cracks. The front of the car was also splintered, the lines drawn crazily across the plastic giving it a hard leer somehow. It rattled into the room, nosing about as if looking for someone.

"What's going on?" Leonard said, as he and Tristian tried to untangle from each other. Tristian shoved him to the side like he was unfurling old laundry, easing into a crouch with his hand lightly grasping the object at his belt. Leonard did his best to meld into the wall, heels kicking at the floor with squeaks. Seeing Brown, he imagined the incident from before and found himself whispering, "Oh God, please don't shoot anyone."

"Did we kill it yet?" Sheldon came out from around the couch on his elbows and knees, crawling like he was involved in trench warfare. "Because I could have sworn I heard it a second-oh."

It twitched, pivoting toward him, the engine whirring to a higher pitch again.

"Help," was all Sheldon had time to say, in a smaller voice.

Then it raced toward him, leaving two black skid marks on the floor behind it, moving toward him so quickly that smoke was starting to seep from the back of the vehicle. Judging by what it had done to the door, it looked to have something similar in mind for Sheldon.

"Think fast," Brown called out, tossing what he had secreted in his pocket across the room, where it turned end over end and finally landed directly in front of the charging race car. Without any time to brake, it slammed into the tall projectile and ran straight up into the air, wheels still spinning furiously as it flipped over to land roughly on its top. The entire vehicle vibrated angrily as it tipped itself back and forth, trying to right itself again.

For nearly a minute the only sound in the apartment was the raging hum of the shrieking wheels. During this Sheldon crawled out further from the safety of the couch, curiously picking up what Brown had thrown to keep the race car from denting his face.

When he got a closer look his mouth opened in silent shock. "Hey," he finally said, holding it up further so that Brown could see it. "This is my 1/500 scale replica of Minas Tirith."

Brown took it from Sheldon's hands, holding it from the base and looking at it with one eye closed, like he was staring into a telescope. "Well, so it is. What do you know?" He handed it back to Sheldon spires side first, "It's also the reason that you aren't wearing tire tracks on the inside of your brain right now, buddy."

Sheldon wasn't mollified. "But my diorama won't be an accurate representation of the stalemate against Minas Mogul in the waning years of the Second Age."

Brown clasped his hands behind his back and peered sideways at the damaged model. "Why not change the diorama so that it showcases the state of the city in its wounded triumph in the wake of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, rising bloodied but still intact over the remains of the evil armies that sought to destroy it?"

Sheldon instantly brightened. "That's a marvelous idea!" and hurried back over to the shelves to rearrange the figures.

Brown just watched him go and clucked his tongue thoughtfully. "And here I thought I didn't retain anything from the three hours of it." Nodding to himself, he turned back to the still teetering race car, its motor now taking on more of a sick whine as it began to burn itself out.

Tristian joined him, kneeling down to get a better look at the trapped car. "Isn't it nice when they take all the guesswork out of whether it's premeditated or not?"

Leonard staggered back to his feet, sliding up the wall while trying to keep as far away from the apparently possessed car as possible. "That wanted to kill us, didn't it?"

"It was certainly part of the agenda," Brown commented. Reaching down, he scooped the car up, which caused it to whirr even faster. He rotated it so that he was staring into the windshield or the headlights. "But what are you really after, now?"

"Maybe they just want us all dead," Leonard suggested in a small voice.

"With radio controlled cars?" Sheldon called out from across the room, putting the finishing touches on his newly accurate diorama. "Come now, that's a terribly inefficient way to kill people. What are they going to do, knock on every door and then break your ankles in the hopes you'll fall down and starve to death? There's far more effective ways to eliminate everyone in the building if they really wanted to."

"No, he's right," Brown said. "They're aliens and so don't understand how to work any of this stuff yet. To them it's like being in a disorganized department store in a foreign country and forced to learn whatever every item does without knowing the language. Though God help us all if they figure out how to use electric knives."

"Or refrigerators." Sheldon moved the Aragorn figure so that he was slightly more triumphant, like a returned king should be. There, that was more like it. "If they took control of those, they should shut them down for a day and spoil all the food, then turn them back on before anyone noticed. The rash of food poisonings that would occur, while not genocidal, would certainly instigate a mass panic that would lead to a local societal breakdown in short order."

Leonard stared at his friend in surprise. "When the hell do you _think _of this stuff?"

Sheldon shrugged. "My .endofcivilization newsgroup. One does always have to be prepared, you know." He paused a beat. "For the end times that are coming."

"Trust me, these are _not_ the end times," Brown interjected. He held the frustrated sounding car again, giving it a very serious look. "But you are trying very hard to do something here, aren't you? What is it? Hm?"

"We may have to try communicating with them somehow, see if we can figure out if they have some kind of plan," Tristian said.

"Oh, they've got a plan." Brown tossed the car up in the air a few inches, hearing it protest by trying to find traction on the air. "The question is how far they've planned this out in advance. And I really don't want to have to go search every apartment for another baby monitor. Not that the last conversation went really well."

"No," Tristian agreed. "Those last words I heard them say . . ."

"_You won't be able to stop us_ . . ." both men turned toward Leonard, who involuntarily found himself backing against the door. "That's . . . that's what they said, right? So they have something in mind."

"Looks that way but . . . what?" Brown put the car carefully back down on the floor, wheels still facing the empty air. It screamed, the sound going right through Leonard's spine and even Sheldon paled slightly at the ferocity of the noise. "You take over the building and then what do you have?"

"A building?" Leonard wondered, although it always more profound when Captain Picard said it.

"They've going floor by floor, it seems," Tristian said. He put his foot near the car but didn't touch it. The tone of its roaring went down a notch, as if becoming more resigned. "Working their way up. If you want I can explore the lower floors to see if I can get some kind of hint . . ."

"One of us should, ah, probably go with you . . ." Leonard found himself saying, resisting the urge to slap himself for even suggesting it. _Why did I say that? I want these people out of here_. And yet a part of him didn't want them to simply leave and solve this without his input somehow. Like he'd be missing out on some vital contribution he could make. But when had that even been true? "You know, so it doesn't look suspicious at all."

"Don't worry about that," Brown said with a smile. "Tristian here is very good at blending in." He looked down, giving the car an almost pitying stare. "But not just yet. I want to get some idea of their movements before we make contact again. I want them to understand that I'm not giving them a chance for co-existence here. Do you hear me?" The car had become quiet, just a constant purring of background motor. Maybe the engine was dying, flaring out as a mechanical mayfly. "You have a right to live, but not at the expense of others. Work with me and we'll find whatever you need. But it won't be here. Am I clear?"

The car was placid for another few seconds before snarling back into life, the wheels spinning so rapidly that the sheer vibration of it started to cause it to creep toward Brown, the body shuddering along the wooden floor inch by inch.

"And that's not an acceptable answer anymore," Brown said softly. "I'm sorry, but no matter how much you want it, you can't have things your way anymore. If you won't compromise . . ."

With a sharp, violent motion he suddenly stomped on the car with his foot. It gave one piercing wail, falling onto its side and rotating in a rapid lopsided circle, the bottom of it crushed.

". . . then you don't leave us with any other options," he finished, stepping down hard on the car once, twice more, a third time, the screaming changing pitch each time until it finally slowed to a numbing crawl. Finally, with a jagged clatter, it fell silent, the purr of it being smothered like a drowning person sinking for the last time.

Nobody said anything for a few seconds. Sheldon wandered over, surveying the destruction Brown had just wrought. "You know," he said, "it's going to be just hell to get that to work properly again."

Brown smiled thinly. "I can tell you're a man who likes a challenge." As soon as the sentence ended he was in motion again, darting over to the couch and plopping himself down, reaching into his pocket as he did so. "Right now, what we need is a way to tell exactly where they are and, more to the point, try to see if there's any pattern to what they're infesting." He was taking small pieces of what looked to be some kind of electronic jigsaw puzzle and was fitting them together, one end into another, letting the structure spread itself out onto the coffee table.

Leonard stepped forward, fascinated. Brown was deftly assembling whatever the hell it was, tiny lights blinking on as each section came online. The concept of it seemed simple enough, probably a device capable of tracking their energy signatures? He had definitely seen Spock use something along those lines and that was years ago. And yet . . .

"That's not going to help." Brown didn't answer but Tristian gave him a curious look that somehow encouraged him to continue. "I mean, ah, knowing where they are isn't going to tell you anything except location, right?"

"I figure it's a start," Brown muttered, tapping one end into place. "But, please . . ." he gestured without turning. "Continue."

Leonard try to draw himself up straighter. "All I'm saying is that if . . . if you're trying to discover what kind of plan they have, you're going to need to see _what_ they're infesting."

Sheldon decided to jump in at this moment. "You know," he said, waving a finger. "Full of idle speculation without being backed up by solid evidence as he is, Leonard might actually have made an intuitive leap."

"Really?" Brown took two long pieces, tried to fit them into each other before frowning and trying them the other way, where they slipped in with a tiny_ snap_.

"Yes." He stood near Brown, stiff and tilted, half watching the man and half watching his own theories come to mind before his eyes. "While hard statistical data is crucial in a situation like this, I think any officer from Starfleet would tell you that the best way to gather data is to collect facts on the ground. Like . . ." he squinted for a second, thinking, "let me use an example."

Brown had finished the device, which was about a foot long and had tiny spikes protruding from each end, like a totem pole that wasn't meant to stand up. A quick, high pitched beeping could be heard being emitted from it, and Brown started to pick it up, turning it this way and that.

Without waiting for the other man to acknowledge him, Sheldon continued. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Leonard, although I highly doubt that will ever happen . . . but I think we can all agree that when it comes to electrical devices, they are not created with the same purpose in mind." He pointed toward the television. "Some are meant to provide lasting entertainment value or immerse the user in worlds of uninhibited imagination, where a small fat man in the real world can pretend to be a curvy elven princess named Gorgesia."

"Oh yeah," Leonard noted with a laugh, remembering, "Howard was not thrilled when he found that out."

"Some are purely functional, like lights and heating and the like . . . while you have that other category of devices that are merely used for vanity purposes. Like the lathering dispenser that uses that fragment body wash you've taken to liking lately, Leonard."

Leonard felt himself flushing. "It was a gift," he stammered, hearing Penny's voice in his head say _Oh God, I could smell this all the time_ when they were passing through the store. He wondered if Brown's Time Patrol had any room for one more person. Sheldon seemed to be getting a kick out of all this.

Brown snapped his fingers. "Well, that finally pins down what that delightful scent was." He stood up with a leap, holding the device in two hands straight up and down, like a small signal flag. Now that it was upright, Leonard could see that most of the lights were clustered on the bottom of the pole, with very scattered gleamings toward the top, although more seemed to flickering in and out with every passing second.

"My point is," Sheldon continued, oblivious to the effect his words were having, "we can get some idea of whatever doomed to fail plan these aliens have by seeing what kinds of objects they animate or inhabit. Obviously, there's no weapons or giant robots around here that they can bend to their purposes . . ."

"Chances are they'd be in here anyway." Brown put the device down on Sheldon's desk, crouching down so that he was eye level with it. The lights were collecting in spirals, clumping more and more at the bottom, trying to spell out a name that no one had the language for. "But go on." He kept rotating it, trying to study the patterns.

". . . and so if they inhabit like, entertainment systems we can imagine that their plan may involve particular visual patterns or maybe certain audio frequencies, such as the kind that induce seizures. As opposed to preferring a more violent plan of action and taking over electric razors." He stared bird-like at Brown, the other man seeming to be lost in studying his strange detector. "So you see, knowing the _where_ is only just the start."

"Hm." He cast a glance over his shoulder at Leonard. "Your friend there is fairly sharp."

"Ah, well . . ." Leonard let a sound come out without allowing it to form any kind of formal word. "He's okay. Sometimes. I was coming up with that, too, I just prefer to . . . prove the theory before I actually introduce it."

"If you could prove it," Sheldon countered smoothly, "then it wouldn't need to be a theory anymore. A theory is merely an educated guess off the available evidence, subject to revision."

"It's better than just speculating . . . off the idea I had first!" Leonard snipped, silently hoping that this was one of those scenarios where team discord would eventually lead to cooperation and harmony. Unfortunately, the only discord was that everyone was agreeing with Sheldon. Tristian and Brown were actually getting along quite well and seemed to have no problem deciding on a plan and then figuring out a way to implement it. _All their episodes would be like twenty minutes long. Maybe they'd be better on the Internet_.

"Perhaps it doesn't say that in your edition of the junior scientists' kit," Sheldon said, folding his arms over his chest and smirking.

"It looks like they're climbing rapidly," Tristian pointed out, leaning on the desk with one elbow. Brown nodded, his lips drawn tightly together.

"Yeah, there's a lot of the buggers, aren't there? And that's not even taking into account any mutations in the field." He tapped at the shaft with a fingernail. "I took a snapshot of their energy signature during our little dust-up downstairs but I'm seeing strains disappearing without returning. Which means they could be shifting signatures outside of whatever parameters this thing has."

"Oh, that's terrible." Leonard shook his head and clicked his tongue, trying to sound like he knew what they were talking about. In some ways this was worse than that time when they had walked into that sports bar by accident and Howard wouldn't let them leave because it was cheerleader night. At least there he hadn't felt too bad about guessing that a Super Bowl was a massive container for chips for those people who didn't want to make two trips to the kitchen.

"Maybe, maybe not," Brown muttered, opening a small hatch on the side of it and starting to fiddle with the settings. "I might be able to adjust . . ."

"The main cluster seems to be on the bottom floor." Tristian frowned as he tried to decipher any patterns in the prismatic constellations. "They may not be able to gain a foothold yet on the higher floors. Or they're waiting for us to come to them."

"Oh, you're just itching to go down there, aren't you?" Brown grinned, shifting his weight to one knee as he made further adjustments. The lights began blinking off and on more rapidly, zooming across the length of it in swirls, fluorescent teeth grinding themselves down in pixilated reveries.

"I'm just saying it's no good if we spend all this time tracking them only to find out that they're right outside the door." Tristian was leaning on the desk with his back to it, both hands resting on the edge. But there was a coiled causality to his stance, and his eyes never stopped watching the door. "We are allowed to work more than angle here."

"I'll keep that in mind. Come _on_ . . ." He lifted the device up as if ready to bang it against the desk, very close to Sheldon's computer. The other man looked prepared to dive across the room to stop him, an attempt Leonard would have not have stopped and in fact would have found fascinating to see. "Besides, I promised Lena I would get you home in one piece."

"Mm," was all Tristian said, his body seeming to become a little more taut, a certain drawn line forming in his shoulders. "I think she'd understand."

"If I let you go off on your own and get your ass kicked? Oh yeah, she'd be completely okay with that," Brown responded. "You do realize that she knows I heal kind of quickly, right? And their kitchen has a wide variety of sharp objects."

"Yes, but are they organized by their equivalent position on a Mohs Scale?" Sheldon jumped in, sliding forward with his fingers knotted together. "And maybe you want to move away a little bit from my work before you disturb the very delicate . . ."

"Sheldon," Leonard admonished, hitting his friend on the arm. "Let the spaceman do his very important work." To Brown, he said, "You can use my desk as well if you need more room."

"Maybe we're telling her too much about what we do," Tristian mused. "I'm trying to give her reasons not to worry but maybe we're just making it worse."

"Ain't for me to say, pal," Brown replied quietly. "But you're going to have to talk to her before you-"

He cut himself off at Tristian's quick shake of the head. With a glance toward Leonard and Sheldon, he looked back at Tristian with understanding eyes and said nothing else.

Tristian bowed his head, deep in thought for a second. Then he tapped a hand against leg, turned toward Brown and said, "What about if we can tap into some kind of-"

"Aha!" Brown suddenly let go of the device, rocking back onto his heels like he had just performed a magic trick. "Guessed on the new frequency and we should get a new clear depiction of-"

With a faintly comical _boop _the entire shaft lit up like someone had glued frozen fireworks to it.

"Our doom?" Sheldon suggested.

"Those sons of a-" Brown swore, picking up the detector. It was a fruit colored stain slowly spreading all the way up to the tip. "They got a lot farther than I expected."

"They don't normally infest this quickly, do they?" Tristian asked, leaning in so close to the device that it was pale pastel lights reflected in his eyes.

"No. No, they don't." Uniform snapping with the motion, Brown practically leaped to the next desk, slapping the device down as if ready to dissect it. "Normal behavior is to situate themselves first before moving on. They're just bleeding all into the floors without making sure they have any kind of toehold." He turned it over, intently studying the new patterns. "Our floor and the floor above us are still okay, but that's . . ." dots kept breaking away, bubbles falling upward into the lost atmosphere.

"We're going to need a better map of the building and cross-reference it with this." Tristian was speaking directly to Brown, his voice fast and low, leaving no room for any sort of argument. "Otherwise we're going to get surrounded very quickly."

"I know, I know." Brown chewed at his lip. "And don't think I didn't notice how you snuck in that little mission for yourself right there."

"You're strategy, I'm implementation. I thought that was the deal." But there was a faint smile on his face as he said it.

"I think it's time we started renegotiating the terms." Brown glanced toward the door, as if expecting company to break through at any second.

"Use our laptops," Leonard suddenly said, going forward a half-step and then taking the step back. _He's really not going to shoot me. I think he'd at least warn me first._ That was sort of comforting. "We should be able to bring up a schematic of the building and you can download your data into ours, then we can integrate it." He opened his laptop and started typing quickly, aware that if the hive could get into electronics then they might be able to reach through his computer and get him. That concept made him feel faintly light-headed but at the same time a bit exhilarated. _I'm putting myself in mortal danger in order to ensure the safety of us all_. Too bad the only people in the room were two men who probably engaged in laser battles on a regular basis and Sheldon, who was only really impressed when equations balanced.

Brown narrowed his eyes. "Nice idea, but how are we going to hook it up to the computer?"

"Ah, it's very simple." Sheldon reached behind his laptop, tugging until something came free. He held up a long white cable, the end of which he refastened into Leonard's computer with a deft motion. He then reached for the device while holding up the free end of the cable.

Brown grabbed his arm. "Whoa, wait there." Sheldon's eyes bugged out slightly. "How do you those are even compatible?"

Sheldon gave a heavy sigh and muttered something under his breath. Gently taking Brown's hand off his arm, he held up the end of the cable and said with all due authority, "It's called _Universal _Serial Bus for a _reason_."

And then, before anyone could stop him, he picked up the device and plugged the wire directly into it. The computer beeped while the device began to answer in kind.

Leonard immediately began tapping at his keyboard, his face intensely close to the screen. "Come on," he whispered, urging the processors to go faster. "Come _on_, almost there, almost . . . yes!" He jumped back and clapped his hands together, his legs leaving the ground in a paroxysm of joy.

Brown raised an eyebrow, stretching so that he could see the screen. "You got it already?"

"Oh no," Leonard said, going back over and hitting a few more keys. "The computer discovered a software patch and downloaded it. At this time of day the servers are always crowded. I had to let my computer run for three days straight to get the last _World of Warcraft_ expansion."

"That's wonderful," Brown said dryly. "But what about . . ."

"Right, right." Leonard pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. Now that nobody was attacking them or creeping on them in the guise of imminent danger, this was becoming kind of fun. He tapped a few more keys, bringing up a program that he thought might help, thinking how maybe this type of life wasn't so different after all. In the end it was just problem solving, only with unusual elements. But he had spent his whole life solving problems, or trying to find solutions for them. And these two, they seemed so, well, _normal_. Like he could run into them at a bar, if he went to bar. If he did, they might be there. People probably didn't look at them as a separate species, like they did with him when he started to talk about condensates or if Superman was faster than the Flash. Danger or not, that life didn't strike him as so bad. It even seemed like Tristian had a girlfriend. "Let me download the data from your . . . what do you call this anyway?"

"A lot of very unpleasant words when it doesn't work properly," came the reply.

"Ah, sure." Leonard worked faster, barely even seeing the data as it streamed across the screen. "I should be able to translate it into coordinates and then cross-reference it with a map of the building and if all goes well, that should . . ."

He hit one last key with a flourish, secretly hoping for some kind of orchestral noise that never came. "There." The screen blinked and a three-dimensional schematic of the building appeared, the same colored dots that had been dancing all over the device now floating in the spaces that were meant to represent the floors and rooms of the apartments. Seen this way, the whole building became somehow alien in itself, stripped down to just the basic boundaries, no identifying features that could make it look personalized. All those visions of the future, sterile corridors repeated over and over again. Like the walk he took up the stairs everyday, when every floor looked exactly the same. _The wrong future is here_.

"That's better," Brown said, using the desk to lift himself to his feet, almost nudging Leonard out of the way so he could study it. Seconds later he gave a low whistle. "Look at this, Tristian."

Tristian furrowed his brow. "They're traveling up the central corridor then."

"Sort of." He pointed to the edges of the screen. "The wiring in this place must be bizarre . . . they're entering up the center and then spreading out, as if blocked by something. Then they all join again in the middle to shoot back up again. No wonder why it's taking so long."

"Probably the elevator," Sheldon said. "It hasn't worked in years, it might be because it's not receiving any power. Which explains why my attempts to turn the shaft into a launching pad never quite worked."

"But see, they're almost in the center again on the floor below us."

"Which means they're coming up soon."

"Yeah, Sheldon, why doesn't the elevator work? You think they would have fixed it by now."

"I imagine it's probably a combination of antiquated parts, terrible repair service, ennui on the part of the residents who have grown to accept this as the new status quo . . ."

"Look, look, the little bastards are clustering on the wings there, getting ready for a push. But using this we can see where they're coming up and maybe nip it in the bud."

". . . and the fact that every time someone does go in there to fix it they find the remains of my experiment in creating sentient radiant fungi. Something about glowing mushrooms tends to spook any potential repairmen."

"You know, I can never tell when you're kidding or not."

"I assure you, Leonard, the luminescence of the Order of Agaricales is _not _something one lightly kids about."

Above them, the apartment lights suddenly flickered, tiny seizures happening inside the brightness, moths flying by with opaque and shadowed wings.

"Or . . ." Brown said, staring at the ceiling, "they're coming up now."

Leonard felt a part of his stomach drop. _Can't we go back to staring at the computer? That was safer._ "Now?" Over Brown's shoulder, he could see the glittering dust of the aliens' progress seeping up the spaces in the building like the walls didn't matter, following rails that nobody could see, moving in their own imposed lines. "I mean, there's some room for error in the program . . ."

"No, they're here." Brown grabbed the screen and tilted it, as if he could pull the schematic right into the room. In answer the lights flashed overhead again, sunsets and sunrises happening under the influence of a speeding time machine, so fast that Leonard thought the bulbs might burn out. He tried to pretend that the creeping chittering clattering he thought he heard was only in his imagination, a factor of the heat coming up or a noise outside or anything but aliens racing toward their floor with perhaps plans to kill them all. "But we may be able to head them off if we can be there when they emerge on the floor. And as much as I hate to say this, I think this is where you come in, Tristian."

Tristian put one hand on the desk and examined the screen, eyes narrowing. His one hand kept going toward the object at his belt and stopping just short. The apparent flashlight, probably in case the power went out completely. _You must have been one hell of a Boy Scout_. "Maybe not. Look at that trajectory, they're going to emerge in here probably. We're the closest to the center."

_Should I hide now? Or do something reasonably heroic_. Leonard found himself suddenly unable to speak, the thought of being confronted with actual aliens paralyzing him more than a straight shot of milk and ice cream together might. Sheldon was following the whole proceeding with his usual detached interest, as if they were discussing which quantum string made for the best galactic floss. "Uh, guys . . ." he tried to say but it only came out as a squeak.

"You're right, any minute now." Brown was insanely calm in the face of it, his gaze darting all over the screen, perhaps plotting out permutations and calculations, a game of chess that descended into more dimensions than they could count. No, that wasn't right, he was only a man. A man who healed a hole in his chest and carried a ray gun. And threatened a homicidal race car without breaking a sweat. He hadn't even taken his maybe-gun out yet. "Then we might as well sit tight and . . . oh, _wait_ a second."

"They've changed direction," Tristian breathed. Already he was shifting his weight.

"Where are they going?" But like on those days when nobody needed to copy off his homework, not a person in the room was really listening to him.

"Let me see if I've got this oriented correctly before we start going off and . . . _yes_." He made a fist, nearly hit the screen but brought himself up just short. "Go. I'll stay here and monitor things."

"Right," Tristian said evenly, three steps to the door before Brown had even finished speaking. He was reaching for his belt, easing it into his hand.

"Where he's going?" Just like being surrounded by the football team and wanting to know what they were doing, he was sure he wasn't going to like the answer. "Where are they coming up if it isn't here?"

"Oh, Leonard." This was Sheldon and for some reason he sounded sad, in a way that he had never heard his friend before. "Have you been paying attention at all? They're coming up the central wiring shaft and then diverging."

"Yeah, so?" The room was bouncing, the world was wobbling. None of these had anything to do with the answer that kept nosing against the base of his brain, trying to push aside the curtains he kept throwing on top of it, blankets on blankets on blankets.

Tristian flung the door open and swept through, his footfalls softened wisps of snow landing on unstable ground. He didn't even bother to shut the door, but merely left it ajar, enough so that Leonard could see his shadow, the end of it still tagged to the floor of their apartment, staked and unmoving.

And the receding end . . .

"Well." Sheldon's voice was coming from somewhere very far away, pushed and compressed into a tiny wind tunnel, that time he had lost his scarf inside one and that hushed hesitant second before the breeze had started, plucking at him with curious fingers before carrying the rest of the words away.

The receding end was

"There are two apartments closest to the central wiring shaft." The equations wouldn't balance. _The equations would not balance_. "One of them is ours. And we have established that they are not coming here."

The receding end was an arrow

"So there's only one place left for them to go."

The receding end was an arrow pointed

"And you'd see, if only you applied a little logic."

_right_

His throat went dry. _No. No, please. Not-_

_toward_

"Okay, gentlemen, while he's gone . . ."

_her_

"But you were never very logical, were you?"

_place_

". . . what I'm going to need you to do is-"

_Not when it comes to her._

"Penny!" a stranger that wasn't him at all shouted in a hoarse roar and before Brown could stop him he was running out the door, onto the black pointed path of Tristian's shadow, following the line before it was gone and before it could leave him behind.


	5. Chapter 5

* * * * *

Relativity was a fraud. Distances did not shorten the faster you went. Light did not curve to the inexorable bend of gravity when possessed of its own inherent mass. These facts that were true on paper did not apply to the real world, to now, to this situation.

There were eight steps to Penny's apartment. He knew because every time he went to walk over there he would count them and count on them to give him the extra time to think of something witty to say, a little joke that might cause her to laugh. And it was always over too fast, to the point where it made him think that the gap had somehow shortened. But no, it was the same every time and every day. Eight steps, fast or slow.

Except now it was more. Somehow. And it was taking so _long_, he swore he was running but that couldn't possibly be true because if it were true he would have been there by now. Tristian's shadow had already snapped into a vanished state, gone to wherever shadows went when they weren't being cast. Brown and Sheldon and his apartment were already miles away, so distant that any vision he had of them would be time-delayed, light crawling to reach him in the fast far reaches to make him sit through an album of old pictures.

Penny's door was open. Had it always been open? Every option had only two possibilities. Isn't that what the cat had taught them? No, she always kept it shut but it was open and now he was inside. Tristian was, Leonard was still struggling across every single inch, feeling every smothering fold of space that had been predicted to drape around them in comforting dimensions. He had always loved science but right now he wanted to cast it out the window, he wanted every magical improbable device he had ever seen in all his years of watching TV shows. _Teleportation, how hard would that be right now? Wouldn't that be--_

Almost at the door, he heard the sound of a switch being flicked and someone took a photograph using a flash covered in blood.

Leonard misjudged, slammed into the doorframe in an attempt to dodge whatever he thought was coming and only succeeded in knocking the wind out of himself. He gasped, feeling his breath rush back into him with all the audacity of a closing vacuum and did he best to enter the apartment by rolling around the door.

It was dark inside, all lights out, all colors gone except for the glimmer. The red glow painted everything in the same sick hue, beautiful and possessed of a seeping menace, radiating from a central point like a lighthouse brought down low and turned on its side, broad rays screaming silently across the floor, the ceiling, the walls. It made the apartment look radically different, the same way that it first had when Leonard had gone in after Sheldon reorganized the place. The pieces were the same but the puzzle made a new picture.

Then the arc of the glow shifted, tilted. A quick rustling came from across the room and Leonard suddenly saw the source.

It was Tristian.

No, it wasn't Tristian. It was what he was holding.

He was holding a _sword._

At some point he had unsheathed a red shift, blindingly bright and forcing Leonard to want to recede, to get away as fast as possible. But that was terrible physics. His back was to Leonard and he was in the rear of the apartment, his stance slightly spread and the blade pointed down. Leonard swore he heard a subliminal humming, a motor placed directly under the skin that you felt without sensing. _Oh my God, what did you do._

He was stabbing something that Leonard couldn't see, the blade dipping into the low cut as if it were the most casual thing in the world. There was no noise, or sparks, or any other sign and at the end of the motion Tristian simply straightened up, holding the sword with the practiced ease of an expert, the shimmer of it infecting every surface it came near. It all seemed so curiously detached, even more than watching a television show. When they did something dumb on _Battlestar Galactica_, he found himself yelling at the screen. Here, all he could do was witness, caught in a dream where all his actions had no effect. His world and not his world.

Leonard did his best to hold himself still, for some reason finding this more unsettling than anything Brown had done so far, for all the regeneration and talk of aliens and the rest, this was coming the closest to shifting his view of reality so hard that the edges were blurring. Maybe because he had let himself see Tristian as perfectly normal, a man dragged along by his best friend into events that he did his best to cope with. But that wasn't the case. Tristian was immersed in this world, whatever it was, perhaps even more than Brown was. The sword was waypoint and ticket and beacon and warning, all at once.

It was Tristian who finally broke the silence. Surveying the floor, he said quite clearly, "I know you probably want to either scream or pass out right now, but I'd really appreciate if you didn't."

"I . . ." the word had lost all inherent meaning until Leonard mentally grasped himself hard to drag his brain back into the apartment. "I, I'm all . . ." he put a hand out on the wall to steady himself, a little surprised that it was even there when he reached for it. "_What the hell is that?_" It was meant to come out stern but instead as a feeble gasp, the force of his own ejection blowing him back step. Light kept peeking in from the open door but tentative and unstable, unwilling to cast any light on the drama unfolding in crimson secrecy.

Tristian looked at the brightly lit blade in his hand with a muted casualness, hardly even bothering to shrug when he said, "This? A sword."

"Oh?" Even his whisper sounded like a gunshot, as if all silence was tissue-paper and too easily frayed. "That's all."

"Yeah." Cradling the hilt in both hands, he crouched down to examine something on the floor, perhaps the merits of his own handiwork. "Come on," he said with a certain archness, "I've seen the inside of your apartment, this can't come as too much of a shock to you."

"Yeah, but . . . but not in real _life_." Even so, he found his own curiosity bringing him closer, Tristian's relaxed ease with the constantly shifting dynamics of the situation calming his nerves a little. Even with the landscape altered, Tristian seemed to fit in perfectly with it, the scarlet glow staining his skin into a complexion that somehow became natural. "Besides, that's not really a-"

Tristian laughed quietly. "Oh God, no. Not at all." Beneath him was a crumpled pile that remained steadfastly shapeless, refusing to change into anything that resembled a familiar object. "It's a little more complicated than that. I don't even understand it completely myself." He frowned, a slash against the haze. "In fact, I'm pretty sure the people who are supposed to understand it, don't understand it all that well either."

"And it . . . cuts," somehow finishing the sentence would make it true. There was a blackboard in his head right now that was covered in so many equations that it looked like the physical approximation of radio static. And the mental clickety-click of the chalk was the only thing keeping him sane right now.

"Anything," Tristian intoned with a nod. He cast a smile at Leonard, meant to be reassuring. "So please don't go touching it."

Leonard eased his way around the furniture, calculating where he could stand and not be caught in the sweep of the blade if Tristian happened to start swinging it. "Ah, I really don't think that will be a problem."

"Good." Tristian shifted his attention back to the floor, digging one hand into the amorphous pile, using the sword as a kind of lantern.

Leonard watched him for a second, bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet. Finally, he found himself saying, "Do people really try to touch it?"

Tristian glanced up at him, as if not understanding the question at first. Then it dawned on him and he said, "No," with a bit of a downwardly expelled laugh. "But then I really don't take it out for show-and-tell."

"Oh." Leonard dropped back at inch, squinting so that he could somehow make out in the red shrouded haze what the hell they were looking at. There was a looseness to it, a solid river that didn't flow, although still containing a kind of thickness. "What exactly are we-"

Then he saw the cord trailing out of it, with a little box and a switch. In the red-dark it was an exposed vein, sunken into the floor and reaching for parts of the room's anatomy that hadn't been mapped. The cord disappeared into the dark where he knew an outlet was and Leonard realized what Tristian was essentially checking the pulse of.

"You stabbed her electric blanket?" he asked, doing his best to sound discerning and not incredulous.

"Frankly, the blanket started it," Tristian said with a straight face, his voice rustling underneath with a slim humor. The sword tilted so that it was parallel to the floor, and Leonard could see a neat hole drilled into it. _It cuts through anything_.

Grabbing a handful of it, Tristian moved the blanket aside to reveal a hole of the exact same size stamped into the floor. _Oh boy, that's going to be hard to explain. _Knowing Penny, she would probably just move some piece of furniture on top of it, which would upset Sheldon more than it would bother her. "Why attack it, though, what could it possibly . . ."

He trailed off as crumpled the blanket up in one hand and cast it to the corner of the room, where it landed with an undignified thump. Underneath it where it had been, clear even in the slanted artificial light of the room, were a series of dark marks scored into the floor. Burn marks, perhaps, the wood clearly seared.

"You don't have to stay here, you know," Tristian said, standing up so smoothly, the perfect curve of a sine wave. The glow went with him and rose, laying arced shadows on the normally familiar corners and curves of Penny's apartment. "You can go back to your apartment, with Joe there you'll be safe."

"Oh, I'll . . . I'll be okay," he said, doing his best to sound resolute and offhand, but more sounding like he was trying to convince himself of those things. "Right here with you, I'll . . . I'm not safe here?"

"I don't know," Tristian admitted. He was in the kitchen, poking around the appliances on the counter, gently shaking them and staring like he could detect some kind of alien glimmer. The coffee maker he unplugged after separating the pot and the filter holder from the rest of it. "My coming into the room might have caused them to back off and regroup. But I imagine they'll try again, especially if Joe thinks of a way to keep them from getting into your apartment." He opened the refrigerator door, then the freezer, examining the ice maker. "Is she a friend?"

The question, zipped by with all the speed of a wayward tachyon, caught him completely by surprise. "Is she . . . who . . . what?"

He pointed with the sword, bending the shadows into aerodynamic cones. "Before, you said _her_ blanket. Suggesting you knew who lived here." He shrugged. "I'm just curious, you don't have to answer."

"We're neighbors, yeah . . ." he said, doing his best to not sound defensive. _And if you hit on her, I swear to God I'll just give up. _"And . . . we're friends, too. Her name is Penny. I, ah, don't know if she's home or not."

"Probably best if she's not, being that we're rummaging around her apartment," Tristian noted, moving some pots aside from the sink before going over to check the blender. He unplugged that as well. "Though I think we're nearly done here. I may just destroy all the outlets in the room to give them less entry points, which will make it vastly harder for them." Without turning around, he added, "And yes, we'll come back and fix them later. We're not that in love with property damage."

Not certain if that was a joke or not, Leonard laughed nervously, hearing his voice do that little jump toward the upper register that it sometimes did. "Good, because she'd . . . Penny would probably blame me somehow. That's the kind of friendship we have." Generally around this time someone always tended to ask Leonard if the two of them were together, or if they had been, or if he was thinking about it. "Yup, me and her. Just the quirky kind of friendship. Unique, like everyone else's." _I sound like an idiot._

"Yeah, I've had some like that," Tristian said, half-listening and not taking the bait. _No, you have to say. _He had moved from the kitchen and was examining what looked like a space heater, although the red highlights from the sword gave it a shimmering and angry cast. _How else can I ask. _It looked almost dejected as Tristian unplugged it from the wall. "Not that I get a chance to make a lot of friends these days . . . my life's gone kind of strange lately." The last part was said in a murmur, the sound of a man still settling into a dream that refused to let go.

"But you . . ." _We're not supposed to have_. It wasn't the most important question in the world, not with the building allegedly full of aliens, not with the two of them standing in Penny's apartment, not directed toward a total stranger. _How did you get. _For so many reasons. But it had been nagging at him ever since they were back in his apartment, like stepping through the mirror universe only to find that instead of everyone having beards and trying to assassinate each other, they were much cooler than you. _Cam you explain why I don't_. Discovering that _you_ were in the crappy universe and even if you got to the other one, you wouldn't be allowed to stay and you returned only to find that your doppleganger was more popular than you were. _I've talked to her and it's no. _For years, he had experienced nightmares just like that.

_Why is it so easy for everyone-_

"There's a lot of wandering involved," Tristian was saying, oblivious to Leonard's internal dilemma. "Well, that's the way I do things at least." He was partially talking to himself, with Leonard only being the accidental audience. "Joe's been trying to keep me local, but I keep thinking I'm going to reach a point some day when I'm going to need to-"

"You have a girlfriend, don't you?" It was like someone popped a balloon full of words that was in his mouth and all he could do was let the air spit it out wherever, completely exposed to trajectory.

Tristian stirred. "Excuse me?" He turned toward Leonard, who had clapped both hands over his mouth. The light of the sword created lens flares in his vision, like every drenched spotlight suddenly focusing on him.

"I didn't mean it," he squeaked back. "_I didn't mean it!_" Striving to make his voice even smaller, he added, "Please don't stab me."

Tristian gave Leonard an odd look, the blade casting red shadows on his eyes. "I, ah, I do actually but I don't see what that has to do with-"

"Forget I asked it," he said swiftly, trying to make himself look useful, staring at the coffee table as if that might somehow be connected to electrical components. He felt his face turning as red as the haze soaking the room and comforted himself with the notion that it wouldn't be noticeable. "Let's go back to . . . to stopping the invasion." _Please?_

Tristian let the sword shift from one hand to another. "If you say so. I think we're almost done here anyway . . ."

"It's just that your life is _so cool!_" Leonard exclaimed, his whole body nearly shuddering with the force of the statement. _Oh God, he's going to think I'm in love with him. _Tristian had maintained his puzzled expression from before, as if expecting Leonard to explain that this was all a big joke very soon. "Sorry, I'm sorry," he said quickly, smoothing the curls in his hair without really changing the topography of them. "I shouldn't have said that, I mean, I meant it but . . ."

Tristian was staring at him with no small measure of bemusement. "Do you normally just keep talking until things are really awkward or do you have some set point already in mind?" The brightened glint gave his face a sinister cast at odds with his posture.

"No, listen . . . ah, _God_," he pressed his hands to the sides of his head. "It's just . . . all right, my whole life I've always wanted to have like this big epic adventure, to go out there and . . . and save the world, be a hero . . ." _get the girl_, but he left that part out. "Be the guy that _needs_ to be there, or else nobody is going to get rescued. I mean, have you ever watched _Star Wars _and thought, I want to live that, I want to have a day _just like that_."

"Not for a long time," Tristian muttered. "It's different out there." But his words were lost in the quiet hum of the blade, or just refused to register with Leonard.

"I did. I really did. I still do." He let his arms drop, feeling the sigh come with it. "I get up every morning, the same time, even on the weekends. I go to work and try to research theories that probably aren't going to be practical until long after I'm dead. Every night my friends and I do something different, but it's the _same_ different all the time. I go to the comic book store every week, I play video games, I see a Batman figure and think, _gee, that would look good on my shelf._" He stared at Tristian across the shimmering gap, the sword drawing an invisible line he could never cross. Or, he could, but the journey would cut him and he'd never be able to go back. "That's me. That's my life. I like it, but that's how it's always going to be." He threw a hand up, spun around to regard the apartment, the air in the apartment, anything but the man in front of him. "Oh, I know, I sound ridiculous. But all my life I've wanted to do something like this and . . . I never thought I could. You know, it just didn't seem possible. Just some dumb kid's fantasy, thinking I'd be piloting a spaceship someday, be the rebel leader, save the day. Sometimes I think I even got into physics because maybe, maybe I could make that come about somehow. But that life's real, isn't it? It's real now." He stuffed his hands in his pockets, scraped his foot along the floor. "And this is as close as I'm ever going to get."

Tristian didn't say anything for a short time. When he did speak, each word had the precision of a clock constructed entirely in a vacuum. "All you've done is see me run around your apartment building and attack common household objects. What exactly are you basing all this on?"

"I . . . I don't know. Because you've got this . . . and the two of you talked about aliens and . . . I just assumed . . ." he let his lips move without any words coming out immediately, digging into his brain for a scenario and finding that nothing came out except for old movies and the terribly pulp covers of 1930s magazines. The blunted simplicity of it stymied him. What had he expected?

"Look." Tristian leaned against the kitchen counter, crossing his legs at the ankles and letting the sword dangle from one hand loosely, the tip of the blade just shy of the floor. It drenched the shadows, giving him a strange oblong sunburn. "It's hard to explain. I want to say you're not missing anything, that it's not exciting. But . . . it is." Leonard felt his heart drop a little bit, like being told a rainbow had a thousand colors that you were just unable to perceive and each one was wonderful. "In its way. But there's . . ." he furrowed his brow. "Let me see if I can put this in a way you'll know. You, ah, okay . . ." he snapped the tip of the sword up, so quickly that Leonard flinched. "You take a waveform, all right . . ." he wiggled the sword up and down as he moved it across the air, so fast that it left hazed afterimages, a jagged sine wave being scarred on the air. "And this . . . imagine your life normally looking like this. Now . . ." he took the sword again and made another wave run but this time moved the sword more sharply, creating a shorter wavelength, the distances narrower, ". . . imagine this as my life. Imagine that. What's the big difference between mine and yours?"

In his head, Leonard took the two near-mirages and compared them, thinking it apt that both representations vanished before he could even attempt to grasp them. And yet, he really didn't even need to remember the sinuous red waves drawn so briefly. He had been able to do wavelengths in his head since that first summer when his leg had been broken and he was stuck inside, when the radio his mother had left him had gone out and all he could do was lie there and listen to static, calculating what every frequency looked like if you could sketch it out.

Even so, the notion still made his mouth go dry. "The peaks are . . . in your version they're higher."

"That's not all," Tristian said quietly, a gentle prompting.

But Leonard already knew. "And, the valleys. They're . . . they're lower."

"When your day goes poorly, you . . . what? Your keys get locked in the apartment. The car doesn't start, you have to stay a little later at work. It rains, when you're not expecting it to." He hefted the sword, holding it so he could stare at the underside of his wrist. Suddenly it looked both infinitely light and impossibly heavy. "When mine goes wrong, it . . . I've seen wonderful things, but . . . that's not all I see." He didn't elaborate, and Leonard wasn't sure if he wanted the man to. "That's all I'm trying to tell you." The sword whipped back down again, the air hissing around it. Leonard was reminded of how Tristian had described it. _It can cut through anything. _In the movies they cut through doors and robots. Out there, there had to be more.

"But . . ." _Leonard, stop!_ Aliens were taking over the building and he kept insisting on interviewing the man. But Tristian wasn't stopping him either. "It's worth it, right? In the end?"

Tristian glanced up toward the ceiling, let his gaze settle to some point past Leonard. "Yes," he said, after a certain pause, with a certain hollowness. "Right now, it is."

He looked about to say something else and Leonard was ready, against all better judgment, to ask him another question when suddenly Tristian snapped into a taut attention, his body twisting to the left, the sword coming up to somewhere near his hip. It splattered red shadows against the far walls, constantly shifting like errant ghosts finally discovering the limits of their confines.

"Leonard . . ." a girl's half-awake voice said from across the room.

"Wait, _wait_ . . ." Leonard said, resisting the urge to dash over to Tristian and risk being impaled. But maybe he shouldn't have even spoke.

Penny leaned against the doorway to her bedroom, still dressed in her pajamas, rubbing the heel of one hand against a tired eye and doing her best to process what was going on in her room. "What are you _doing_ in here?" she asked, her voice muffled and blurred. "And why is it so _red _. . . did you break open a lava lamp-"

Then she blinked and finally noticed what the source of the glow was. Her eyes went wide and her voice rose into a pitch that suggested she was very much awake as she said, "And who the _hell_ is this?"

* * * * *

Leonard smiled uneasily, moving forward a few steps toward her, then stopping, then going forward again, then going back to almost where he had started. Penny's gaze never wavered from him, with all the focus of a spy satellite. Normally he wanted that kind of attention but not right now. _Damn, I thought she was out at work. She must have been sleeping in._

"Penny," he said in as friendly a voice as possible. "I take it you haven't met Tristian yet . . ." gesturing toward the other man he said quickly, "Penny, Tristian . . . Tristian, this is my lovely neighbor that I was telling you about." _He's fighting the aliens that are all inside the building you're now trapped in_, he added, doing his best to squelch a rising sense of panic.

"Mornin'," Tristian said politely. He seemed to be trying not to laugh.

"It's nice to meet you," Penny responded sweetly, with false cheer. Then she turned her attention back to Leonard. "And you _still_ haven't explained to me what the hell you're doing in my apartment, buddy. I didn't realize I was part of the grand tour." She shielded her eyes from the blaze of Tristian's sword. "And do you mind turning that giant flashlight off? You _Star Trek _people really know how to take things too far."

Leonard bit his lip to keep from automatically correcting her. That seemed to be the absolute wrong action to take at this exact moment. If he merely apologized and left, she'd probably go back to bed and get over it fairly quickly. She rarely stayed mad at him or Sheldon for very long. But then she'd be alone in here and there was no way to explain the current situation without sounding like utter lunatics. Heck, even he thought it was nuts and he had been forced to dodge a homicidal toy car. No, she had to go with them. But how?

He caught her staring at the sword again, a wariness starting to creep into her eyes. That same look she always gave when they'd start talking about the origins of Green Lantern's allergy to the color yellow or whether movie Wolverine could beat up comic book Wolverine. The _you guys are nerds_ look. By now he was used to it, even as he wished he could change it somehow. But at the same time, it gave him an idea. "I'm really sorry, Penny, I thought we had told you already."

Her expression changed to a mixture of tired and quizzical. And it was a look that was slightly cute on her. _Dammit, Leonard, focus! _"Tell me what, Leonard?" she asked, brushing some hair out of her face and sounding just a little bit exasperated. That only made it worse.

Swallowing to force himself to think, he said, "This weekend was the, ah . . . live-action _Star Wars _role-playing tournament."

Penny's eyes narrowed with all the force of an MRI scan. "The live what?"

"Yeah." Leonard did his best to sound confident. "Live-action role-playing is different from the table-top version because every one dresses up and runs around while in character."

She folded her arms over her chest, stifling a yawn. "I didn't know there was a table-top version."

"Oh yeah, there totally is and it's this weekend . . . we were discussing it last Monday when we were having thai food. Don't you remember?"

"Sweetie . . ." she ran both hands through her hair. "You guys start talking about which quark would win in a fight and frankly, I just tune you all out." Inwardly, Leonard rejoiced, even if the admission didn't bode well for him in the future. She let one arm drop heavily against her side. "So . . . what does all this mean, then? Is my apartment going to be nerd-central for the rest of the weekend?"

"Oh, no no," he said swiftly, before he could let the implications of _that_ sink into her head too deeply. "It's . . . right now we're . . . hiding. I'm a rogue space-trader and Tristian here is . . ."

"Tal'shigar Jacart, Jedi Knight," Tristian chimed in, giving Penny an elegant bow that had her slightly taken aback. "At your service, princess."

"What?" Penny said, although she seemed a little bit flattered. _Easy there,_ Leonard thought but managed to keep the sudden annoyed flare out of his face.

"Yeah, Trist-ah . . . Tal'shigar is on the run and I'm . . . helping him. The whole city is the spaceport Mos Eisley and right now this building is a safe haven." As he mulled over the scenario it started to grow on him. "It belongs to a local priesthood and we've claimed sanctuary, so nobody else can get in right now. But we can't leave or else the other bounty hunters are going to get us."

"But," Tristian added, "they aren't about to let that stop them and so are trying to sneak in to capture us, doing their best to circumvent the priests' defenses. Which means we must be eternally vigilant."

"Yeah, that's nice," Penny said dismissively before leaning forward slightly. "Now, what was all that princess stuff about?"

"The royal family from . . . Omaha VI is also hiding out in the sanctuary." Leonard saw a little smile peek at the edge of Penny's face, which gave him the confidence to go forward. "Their rule was overthrown by those who would see tyranny prevail and justice denied. So for the moment they're regrouped so they can plot how they're going to come back into power and restore righteousness." He pretended to slick his hair back. "As the maverick rogue trader, I've agreed to help the Jedi knight reach the local branch of the Jedi academy _and_ defeat the hunters who are after him."

"In exchange for what?" Tristian asked. Leonard gave him a look, and the man shrugged with amusement. "I know your type, you don't do anything for nothing. You wouldn't have agreed to this if there wasn't something in it for you somehow." He stood in such a way that suggested he was wearing a Jedi's cloak, even without the sword.

Leonard stammered for a second. "Perhaps I'd . . . I, well . . ." Then he put his hands on his hips and stood up straight. "I want to spend the day with the Jedi at their academy. To see how they live."

Tristian raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"Yes," Leonard responded. "Ever since I was a child I've heard so many rumors about them, so many stories, that I want to see for myself what they're like. I mean, I don't need credits, I live by my wits out on the frontier . . . as long as I've got my ship and a place to go, I'm just fine. But a chance to see how the mythical Jedi live, the halls in which they study, their practice fields . . . you can't put a price on that." He did his best to make his voice sound strong. "That's my offer. Take it or leave it."

"You ask a high price for your assistance. We don't just let anyone walk into our halls." Tristian replied, his voice serious. But there was amusement in his eyes. "How do you know we can't solve the problem without you?"

It was an effort to put the words together correctly. Language was binary switches that had become broken off. "I have knowledge of the local terrain that you're not familiar with."

"We have much experience with pathfinding," Tristian lobbed back easily.

"But what you don't have is time. Already the . . . hunters are climbing the levels searching for you." He wagged a finger at Tristian in what Leonard hoped was a sage manner. The other man only raised an eyebrow, prompting him to continue. "My advanced technical knowledge won't be something you can gain easily. Yes, you may be able to win this one, but without me, it won't be simple. And the risk will be much greater. The question you need to ask yourself: can you afford that risk?"

Tristian looked down, briefly bit his bottom lip as if discarding his first answer. "You make a strong argument."

"Hey," Leonard said, breathing on his fingernails and rubbing them against his shirt in an effort to look relaxed, "I don't make arguments. I make _sense_." He shoved it in his pocket when he saw how much it was shaking.

"That you do," Tristian said, his expression shrouded. "Are you prepared, if we accept, if we do allow you? It's not a journey one can easily make."

"I'm willing." His voice shivered as a glacier tried to pass through. _Which part of this is the game?_

"Are you?" The pointed force returned to his voice. Tristian had an underdrawn, low way of speaking, often sliding his words in half a second before you'd expect them. "Are you ready to witness sights that few have laid eyes upon, to walk in halls that have never heard voices from outside worlds, to go out so far that a wrong turn could mean a lifetime lost? Would you risk taking that step?"

Leonard felt his spine fuse, crackling as a bare wire. "If, ah . . . if it's not too much to ask," he ventured, his head spinning.

Tristian tapped the hilt of the sword against his palm. "Oh, we're going to need a more definite answer than that."

"Yes, then, yes!" Only a strange clenching in his stomach kept him from shouting it. "I'll go. When this is over, I'll go with you!"

"I feel like one of you just proposed to the other," Penny commented dryly from her bedroom doorway.

"Negotiations like this are always very . . . intense," Tristian noted easily. "Fortunately, in your case we do not have to enter into any such thing. For the royals in distress, our aid is automatic and unconditional."

"Oh. Well." Penny's voice went up a note or two and Leonard could tell from the sound that she was blushing. "I guess that makes sense and . . . _wait_." She twisted her mouth, her eyes getting wide and cautious. "Does this mean I'm playing your game?"

"If you'd like."

Her eyebrows drew together. "And I get to be a princess."

"In word and deed and treatment," Tristian offered. Leonard could only watch. _Damn, he's good._

Penny considered for a second. "Okay," she said brightly. "I was off today, so I was only going to watch television and convince myself that a _90210 _marathon was a good enough excuse to avoid cleaning. Just give me a second to . . ." she turned to go back into the bedroom and then paused, pivoting with a questioning expression on her face. "I don't have to . . . dress up like one of these characters, do I?"

"As always, the royal family sets the fashion trends."

Penny grinned and glanced at Leonard. "I like this one. Can we keep him and get rid of Sheldon?"

"Yeah, he's a . . . delight," Leonard replied with mildly gritted teeth, but Penny had already disappeared into the bedroom and soon after there was the sound of opening drawers and closet doors. Still facing where she had gone, he shifted his gaze sideways to Tristian. "Hey, that was pretty good."

"Speak for yourself," Tristian replied, taking the opportunity to start examining the outlets again. "The _Star Wars_ game was a nice save. This thing isn't easy to explain."

"I can imagine, I . . . yeah," Leonard said, the last few minutes finally dawning on him. "That was a good save, wasn't it?" He nodded to himself, pleased. Across the room, Tristian was tipping a lamp to get a better look at the bulb, using the blade to cast what illumination the rest refused to.

Suddenly, he looked at the blade and frowned. "This is silly," he said, starting to slide his thumb along a recessed switch.

Leonard noticed the motion and almost leapt over the couch to reach him. "No, you can't," he hissed.

"I . . . what?" Tristian asked, confused.

Leonard crept in closer, looking toward her room every few seconds to make sure she wasn't coming out. "Look," he said, "right now she thinks this is some kind of game. She . . . if we tell her otherwise she's going to freak out. Penny . . . she's not into science and that other stuff like we are . . . if she finds out this is real she's not going to take it well at all."

"You're trying to protect her." Whether he thought this was a good thing or not, Tristian's eyes gave no sign. But he took his finger off the blade's hilt and shifted his grip.

The directness of it stumped Leonard for a second. "No, I'm not trying to . . ." a sigh broke in him like a puncture. "I just don't want her to get scared, that's all."

"This may reach a point where we can't pretend it's a game anymore." Tristian was staring at Leonard over the length of the blade, his eyes filled with parallel crimson scars. "I don't know how far they're going to take this."

Leonard looked down, aware of how close the sword was, trying not to think about what would happen if it just brushed him. _And the bonds just separate in the reaction_, the professor said, pulling the tiny balls off the sticks. _While the whole system falls apart. You won't even recognize what it once looked like. _"We, _I've_ got to take that chance." It would have sounded braver if his leg didn't keep shaking, forcing his heel to tap out a rabbit-fast rhythm on her floor. "I don't want to leave her in here. Alone." He had never felt more stripped than in that moment, his stomach turning into two sets of colloidal ropes, each striving to gain the upper hand. Even worse than the first time he had asked her out. Back then, he had thought the worst that could happen was that she'd say no. "And she's safer with you guys."

Tristian managed a smile at that. "Safe with the regenerating man and the fellow with the glowing sword?" Without waiting for Leonard to respond he added, "All right, I'll keep it out. She can think it's some kind of toy. Sound fair?"

Leonard released the breath that nobody told him he had been holding. Asthma's too slick hands kept squeezing at the borders of his lungs, threatening to clench and not let up each time he breathed in. "Yeah. That'll work." It occurred to him that he could have explained it to her, somehow. The sword didn't _need_ to stay out. But then the first time he had to ignite the damn thing again and it would be all over. Right now he was counting on a certain suspension of disbelief on her part and he couldn't let that be ruined. "Thanks."

Tristian only grunted, rolling the sword hilt between two hands and sweeping back to examine the lamp again, this time reaching behind it to unplug it from the wall. Leonard noticed how he seemed completely conscious of where the blade was at all times, even when he wasn't staring directly at it. _If I held that, I'd be chopping everything in sight. _There were so many questions he wanted to ask suddenly, but he didn't even know where to start. That was the problem with science, it was a never ending series of branches. Each one just led to another. The beginning wasn't even the right place to start, it was simply the beginning.

But sometimes you just had to pick a start and go with it. "So, how did you exactly get-"

"I'm ready . . ." Penny's door banged open and she emerged, almost bouncing as she did so. She had changed from her pajamas to a pair of nice jeans and a colorful T-shirt, matching it with a pair of soft boots. "Well, how do I look?" she asked in a singsong voice, her gaze going from one man to the other.

"Hey, you look . . . you look great, Penny," Leonard said. "Just like a princess. From Omaha IV."

"Why thank _you,_ Leonard," she said, with a small curtsy. Her face went suddenly serious. "I don't have to do anything weird now, do I?"

"Oh no no no," he reassured her, waving his hands. "You don't have to act like yourself at all, just be normal or . . . no, that's not what I meant, I was trying to say that as a princess you can decide what normal is or . . ."

Tristian stepped forward, the blade carving a whispering groove as he went. "I believe what our companion is trying to say that within these walls you are free to express yourself however you like, and that none will judge you based on that." She nodded slowly, not quite understanding, the same look he had seen her give Sheldon dozens of times. "By the same token, you must be aware that others may act not according to your usual standards and we ask that you do not judge them either. Because they are only doing as they see best and we shouldn't stop them."

"Right," Penny replied, drawing the word out. Crossing her arms, she pointed one finger at Leonard. "So what you're saying is that . . . they're going to do some strange things and I shouldn't freak out over it."

Tristian let his foot slide back as he bowed toward her. "The princess' conciseness speaks to her wisdom."

"Oh, that's so _nice_ . . ." she giggled, before turning to Leonard and mouthing _Who is this? _with wide eyes. Leonard just smiled weakly and shrugged.

"Okay, then," Leonard put in before Tristian could speak further, "we should get back to the . . . other sanctuary. Staying in one place only makes us more of a target."

"Your survival skills will fare us well," Tristian replied. "You are correct, we should depart."

"Fine, fine," Penny said. Suddenly she was striding to the wall, one hand reaching out. "Just let me get some lights on in here so that when I come back in I don't fall and break my neck-"

"No!" both Tristian and Leonard yelled at the same time, even as her hand came near to brushing the light switch. Their combined shout caused her to pause for the crucial second that allowed Leonard to somehow reach her first, grabbing both her wrists with one hand and twisting so that he was in front of her, his back to the switch.

"Yes, Leonard?" Penny asked all too calmly, with that edge in her voice.

With his palm against her skin, he swore he could feel her pulse, the odd steadiness of a radio transmission, regular and fleeting and present. One of them needed to make a joke right now. That was standard procedure.

Swallowing so hard he felt his throat start to turn inside out, Leonard said, "If we start turning on lights, we're only going to let them know where we are and make it easier for us to be tracked." He risked leaning in closer, telling himself it was all for the theatrics that the situation required. "We have to move under cover. It's the only way."

Penny only nodded wordlessly and for a second he thought he saw a glimmer of . . . something in her eyes, even if it was too dark to tell. Did her pulse just throb in a different rhythm, for that one moment? A slight flush to her cheeks, or maybe even a-

With a jerk she yanked her hands away, stepping to the side and past him, leaving the light switch abandoned and him behind. Her eyes traced him down to the base components of his shape. "Sweetie, I like you dearly . . ." she said, "but sometimes you are just so _strange_."

Then, shaking her head in disbelief, she strode over to her door. Tristian opened it for her with a flourish, a gesture she barely noticed as she stalked out.

Across the room, Leonard gave the other man a shaky thumbs up and Tristian looked away abruptly to avoid laughing.


	6. Chapter 6

* * * * *

"You know, when Superman once faced the Lightning Lords of the 30th Century, he was able to charge the radio antennae on top of the building with static electricity so that it drew all their lightning bolts to it, rendering them powerless." Sheldon sat on the edge of the couch watching Brown sitting cross-legged on the floor diligently taking apart their broken lamp.

"I'm not sure that's real feasible," Brown responded, speaking through a pair of wires that he held between his lips, staring intently at the open top of the lamp and teasing out some more wires. "What do you do once you've got all the energy on the antennae? You've got to put it somewhere."

"I never was able to figure that out," Sheldon said, glancing up toward the ceiling. "That was the cliffhanger and I've never been able to find the issue that came after. But I'm sure we could rig up a scaled down version-"

"No," Brown said sharply.

Sheldon looked hurt. "You didn't even let me _finish_."

"You know, you're right." Brown sat up a little straighter and slid the lamp out so that it set a bit deeper in his lap. He took the wires out of his mouth and started to thread them back into the lamp, one eye closed. "Go ahead, finish your thought."

"Well." Sheldon patted his thighs, doing his best to not look too pleased with himself. "As I was _saying_, if we manufacture a smaller version of the antennae by using, say, the elevator cable that runs through the entire center of the building, then we can run an alternating current through that would potentially trap them all in the shaft where they can easily captured or transferred to another planet." He folded his hands together, his back a ramrod. "It's very elementary."

"And it would probably blow up the entire building." Brown swore under his breath as the lamp slipped, nearly tearing apart the mesh of wires he was creating. "That, or just gather a whole bunch of aliens who don't like us that are now scattered throughout your building all in one place. So . . . no. But thanks for playing." He took a small tool out of his pocket and began to pry off another plate on the lamp, exposing more of its innards.

Sheldon's mouth worked without any sound coming out. "It worked for Superman," he protested. "And I'd like to see if _you_ have any better ideas."

"As a matter of fact-" Brown started when the apartment door swung open.

Penny breezed in right after it, her boots making little sound on the hard floor. "Hello, Sheldon," she said quickly. She stopped short with a skidding noise when she saw Brown. "And hello . . . ah, guy taking apart their lamp."

"For a good reason," Brown said, pointing one finger in the air.

Leonard ran right in after her, stopping just short of grabbing her by the shoulders. "Ah, princess, you've met the rest of the team I see," he said loudly, shaking his head as Sheldon gave him a quizzical look. "These are the people who are going to get you to safety."

Unhurried, Tristian wandered in behind him, the light from the sword a spreading stain that was their only warning. Even with his back to them, Brown seemed to sense it, visibly flinching and half-turning before catching sight of it and spinning abruptly back. A sigh might have been ejected from him, more defense than mourning, the cloud you hope will keep them away.

"Princess?" Sheldon said, his voice rising into the realm of the incredulous. "Come on, Leonard, don't you think you're being a little much now? I really don't think giving her a _nickname_ is really going to make her sl-"

"She's a princess of the planet Omaha IV and she's staying with us in the sanctuary until we can escape the bounty hunters that are searching for her." Leonard spoke so quickly that his words almost ran right over each other, shooting Sheldon a very sharp look in the process that said, _Go with this, or else_. Although Sheldon had never been very good at taking hints in the past so he really hoped this didn't get to the point where he had to figure out if he could get the sword from Tristian before the other man could stop him. "You remember the big _Star Wars_ live-action game that's going on this weekend, right? Penny's decided that she'd like to try it."

"That's _right_, Sheldon." Penny sat down next to Sheldon and folded her hands in her lap demurely. "And as one of my galactic subjects, you have to do what I say."

"Oh, _do_ I now?" he responded, folding his arms over his chest and gracing her with a haughty smile. Leonard breathed an inward sigh of relief. If there was one thing Sheldon liked to do normally, it was ask questions. Hell, maybe there really was a game going on. Stranger things had happened. _Like aliens in your apartment?_ He wisely let that thought go unanswered. "And what exactly will happen if I don't do your bidding? If I even deign to be follow what will no doubt be an utterly ridiculous proclamation."

"Tell me you have nothing to do with this," Brown muttered as Tristian crouched down, carefully laying the sword down on the floor, although he kept one hand poised on the hilt. Brown refused to look directly at the burning slash of the blade. "And why the hell is that still-"

"Why, I'll jettison your comic collection out the airlock," she said primly, crossing one leg over the other.

"She doesn't know." It was a bare whisper, the words half-formed, although Brown gathered their meaning regardless. "Not about . . ."

Sheldon's eyes went so wide that if his eyelids had bones they would have snapped completely. "You wouldn't _dare_ . . ." he said a shocked voice. Penny only shrugged, still smiling. Sheldon turned to Leonard to support, twisting on the couch. "Leonard, tell her that she can't-"

"Sorry," Leonard said sheepishly, though not without some amusement. "You heard her, she's the princess."

"That's right," she said in a singsong fashion, bopping Sheldon on the forehead with one finger. "_Subject_."

Sheldon's eyes merely narrowed dangerously. "Oh, there may be regicide before this day is out."

"Ah," was all Brown said, glancing back toward Penny and then simply nodding at Tristian.

"So what happens now?" Penny asked. "Or do I just get to keep ordering Sheldon around?" Sheldon merely glared at her in a tight-lipped fashion, but otherwise kept quiet.

"Right now me and my faithful droid should confer with our team of mercenaries on what they're doing about the . . . bounty hunters that are chasing us." Tristian and Brown both looked up at Leonard at the exact same time. "If its okay with them. If, you know, they aren't too busy."

"Oh, I'm never too busy to stop and explain my plans in the midst of danger," Brown said, tempering his comment with a pleasant smile that Leonard suspected was more for Penny's sake. "Being that we promised to keep you informed and all."

"Wait, faithful droid . . . are you talking about me?" Sheldon suddenly asked. When Leonard didn't answer immediately he stood up from the couch and stood inches from his friend. "Answer me, is that my character in this?"

"Sheldon-" Leonard rubbed his forehead, a gesture he was starting to find both familiar and mildly therapeutic.

"Are you seriously suggesting that out of a host of characters available to me I would pick a _droid_ to-"

"Yes!" Leonard shouted, somehow making his friend shrink back an inch despite their height differences. "You are a droid. Tall and shiny and logical and insufferable and I swear to God if you don't shut up about it I will deactivate you." His hand clenched, ready to tear our wires. _Please, _his eyes seemed to beg. _Just go with this_.

"Oh." His shoulders hunched a little, then went back down again. "Well." And he looked away, to some place past Leonard, between where he stood and Tristian and Brown resided. "I suppose I embody those qualities in real life as well." He started to move away, past Penny and closer to his spot on his couch. Just before he reached it, he turned back to Leonard, adding, "Just don't expect me to have all the answers ready for you. Circuits can still have hurt feelings, too, you know. And not all of our wounds can be dinged out by studious Jawas."

Penny only looked at him and shook her head, confused. "I hear words that I know, but they don't seem to go together right." Casting off Sheldon's antics from her brain, she turned to Brown, leaning forward a little to regard his handiwork. "And just what are you doing? I didn't realize you people took this game that seriously."

"Oh, I'm taking this very seriously," Brown replied, hoisting the lamp so that it rested against one knee, shifting his position so that he could almost curl his torso around it. He appeared to be trying to splice the wires into another set he had taken out of his pocket. "A renegade Grand Moff like myself, we don't play around. In fact-"

Sheldon's muffled snicker interrupted whatever else he was going to say. "Grand Moff?" he said, unable to keep the simmering glee out of his voice. "You're not a Moff."

Something in his tone appeared to offend Brown, despite himself. "I'm sorry. And why is that?"

"Your uniform is _all_ wrong," Sheldon explained, giving Brown an up and down gesture with one hand. "You aren't sporting the necessary insignia and you don't even have a plausible explanation for why you would even be here." He settled back, happily smug. "I bet you don't even know who you report to immediately."

Brown coughed. "Well, obviously, Darth Vader, of course." Tristian, meanwhile, seemed to be doing his best to be very fascinated by the electrical cord.

Sheldon snickered again, a bit like a hyperactive asthmatic attempting yoga. "No," he said, drawing the word out in amused surprise. "Leonard, did he bother to do _any_ research at all before he decided to play this game?"

"Let's just say I'm only doing this because of peer pressure," Brown said through gritted teeth.

"You report directly to the emperor, of course," Sheldon explained, with the patience of one explaining Javascript to someone who had only known assembly code his entire life. "He's the one who appointed you to your position and as such you are responsible for a large sector of the Empire, to ensure that it stays in line with the emperor's wishes."

"You know, that's pretty much how it happened in real life, too," Brown muttered, shaking his head and swearing as the lamp nearly slipped out of his grasp. He brought it up with a grunt and tugged on the exposed wires, cutting one with a small device and beginning to weave in his new wires.

"As a Moff you were assigned to your position because of your overwhelming ambition and arrogance, because you enjoy lording it over people who you feel are beneath you. I mean, what you should be doing is ordering us all around and being a royal pain in the ass because you don't want to do any work. You're used to being in charge, to people demanding to be at your beck and call." Sheldon shook his head, disgusted. "You're barely getting into character at all, I don't even know why you're bothering to play. I mean, if you're not going to take it seriously then-"

"Here's an idea," Brown said sharply, handing the lamp abruptly over to Tristian and standing up to cross over to Sheldon with two great strides. "Perhaps I'm laying low because I don't want people to know what my actual rank is, hm?" The smile on his face was beamed in from elsewhere and represented nothing real. "Perhaps I've been in character since the moment I walked in because I've got a grand master plan here and would prefer that some people don't keep calling attention to it. And I'm not adverse to eliminating people who get in the way of my plans. Would that go over better with you?" His voice held all the compressed power of atoms smashed together inside a star.

Sheldon swallowed heavily. "It certainly would be more in the spirit of things," he said in a low voice. Penny was looking between the two of them curiously, one eyebrow raised.

"Good." Brown snapped his fingers and pivoted abruptly, stalking back over to the lamp and taking it gingerly from Tristian. "Then maybe you can search your big droid database and tell me exactly how much power this cord can take."

Sheldon blinked. "Well it depends on whether you want to factor in resistance from-"

"Just give me a number!" Brown snapped, running the cord to the nearest outlet, his motions precise and jumping, a gas molecule stripped of all random action, falling outside of all principles. "You wanted orders then you've got an order. Do some calculations and let me know so I don't blast a hole in the side of the building."

"Hey," Penny said, standing up. "Its just a game, you don't have to shout at him!"

"Penny," Leonard said calmly, feeling her eyes burning into him immediately and knowing speaking was a terrible idea. "They're just . . . getting into character. That's all."

"No, it's not right," Penny continued, bringing her small height directly to Brown. "Who the hell do you think you are, to talk to him or anyone like that. Just because you're a . . . a muff or whatever."

"Moff," Sheldon corrected automatically, his fingers dancing on the air as he started to make some equations. Leonard always found himself fascinated and slightly jealous of how his friend could literally see the math that ran the world, that it all broke down into the elegance of numbers and symbols where everyone else saw nothing but random actions. Except he didn't know if Sheldon was able to appreciate the beauty of it.

Brown blinked, looked ready to say something else, and then suddenly broke into a charming grin. "Right. Hello, I don't think we've met. My name is Joseph Brown, I'm cut off from the resources of my . . . empire and right this second me and my friend over there are perhaps the only people who can keep the . . . bounty hunters from getting at you."

"Oh, hello," Penny said, taken slightly aback. "Listen, I'm just saying you don't have to be-"

His grin never wavered. "Look, I've been called Commander, I've been called a Grand Moff, I've been called other names that aren't nearly as polite, but you can call me whatever the hell you want as long as you do one thing . . ." Without waiting for her to answer, he said, "And that's stay the hell out of my way." He crouched down, examining the outlet and running a box-shaped device up the wall before frowning and shaking his head.

Penny bit her lip in frustration and looked over to Tristian. "I may need to borrow that for a second," she said, referring to his sword.

Tristian only shrugged by way of apology. "It wouldn't do anything, its very fragile. You know how props are. He just . . . gets very into these games."

"Don't I ever," Brown said with an exaggerated false cheer. "And why am I not hearing any _numbers_, my faithful walking computer!"

"About five hundred volts," Sheldon shouted from across the room, dropping his arm into his lap as if the finger had run out of invisible ink. "Of course, that may only be for a limited amount of time as imperfections in the line start to take their toll, so we may have to make adjustments for-"

"Good enough for now!" Taking his thrown together contraption to another outlet, he put the box against the wall one more time before appearing to decide that this was the place and plugging in the lamp. There was a buzzing hiss that came from the wires right away, and Brown yelped, dancing away and shaking his hand. A wisp of smoke came from the top of it but just as soon was replaced with a quiet humming.

All the lights in the room dimmed and then became even brighter than before, a sunrise from every angle.

"All right," Brown said, giving his hand one more good shake and taking a deep breath. His eyes darted from one light to another, to all the electrical devices in the apartment. "That should keep them out for a little while."

"A forcefield?" Tristian asked.

"Yeah." Brown nudged the lamp with his foot. "I set up a feedback loop in the lamp itself so that it should generate its own power and be self-perpetuating. It'll create a counter-vibrational current that will act as a barrier and should be enough to keep them out. For now."

"They'll match the frequency eventually."

"I've got it switching randomly every few seconds so that they should be a step behind at all times." He tilted his head and grinned at his friend. "Come on, Tristian, this isn't the first time I've done this sort of thing, you know. Okay, maybe it is but I'm good at learning as I go." Clapping his hands together, he pivoted toward the rest of the group, saying cheerfully, "Now, let's take a poll here. How much do the rest of you know about fighting bounty hunters?"

Nobody raised their hands, although he did receive a series of blank looks.

"I thought the friends you had before were odd," Penny whispered to Leonard, leaning over to him. "Where the hell did you find these two?"

"Oh, you know me," Leonard said with a nervous smile. "Always trying to make new friends. I can't help but be gregarious."

"Okay, that rousing response means that I'm the expert around here but I swear I won't let this thirst for command go to my head. In fact I think we can all pull together and work through this as a team." Throwing one arm up he snapped his fingers and headed toward the bedrooms. "That said, Leonard, Sheldon, conference in the back _now_. Tristian, keep the lady company, will you?"

As Sheldon stood up, he said, "Technically, my droid name is ADS5S5." He smiled, as if waiting for everyone to pick up on a subtle hint. When the silence stretched too long to be tolerable any longer the smile gradually faded from his face and he said, "Come on, it's the term for the product space of a Anti de Sitter space and a five sphere. Doesn't anybody read anymore?"

"Oh, ha ha," Leonard said, only partially getting it and looking like he wasn't sure if he wanted someone else to join in or not. But it would certainly be a welcome change of subject.

Sheldon just shook his head and gave his friend a dirty look. "Don't patronize me. You've never cared a damn about supergravity."

"I know I haven't," Brown said, already halfway to the bedroom hallway. "We can discuss how much I don't care _in the back_. Come on, boys."

"Yes, sir," Leonard said sullenly, trying to get rid of the feeling that he was being summoned to the principal's office. By a principal that had moved into his apartment. With a gun. And then he stopped thinking of more facts before he really got himself depressed.

The three of them shuffled off to the bedrooms, Leonard reluctantly and Sheldon with a certain spring to his step that hadn't been apparent before. Tristian watched them go, the sword clutched lightly in his hand, the point an inch or two above the floor. Its light was reflected in shattered sharp line on the edges of the glass fragments that littered the floor.

The door shut with a click that seemed to echo throughout the entire apartment, leaving the two remaining occupants staring at each other and waiting for one of them to make the first move.

"Hello," Tristian said finally, and it was a start. "I imagine you'd like to know how this is going to go."

Penny just nodded silently, her eyes wide.

* * * * *

As soon as Brown walked into Sheldon's room, Leonard knew this was going to be a problem. He was sure of it when he closed the door and turned to see Brown stretched out flat on the bed, legs crossed at the ankles and hands behind his head. Without even looking he could _hear_ the taut muscle forming in Sheldon's jaw.

But Brown said nothing for a while, chewing thoughtfully at the inside of his cheek and staring at the ceiling. Even prone he seemed to be capable of a ceaseless energy, his foot twitching to a rhythm that none of the rest of them could match.

It was quiet for so long that Leonard felt he had to speak, even though he knew that along with pretty much every other instance today, he knew it was going to be a mistake. "Um, is it safe to say that we're not here to give you a physics lesson?"

Brown just let his gaze travel back down to Leonard and then shook his head slowly and silently.

Something about the way he was staring made Leonard feel like he was hiding a million secrets from the man, all of which he had to confess now or else risk being erased in time. Which was ridiculous, the man wasn't _doing_ anything, just lying there. Completely stationary, as if time had someone fallen still around him. But he didn't look ageless, just young, maybe around their age to be honest. Their age and a thousand years older, for all his reckless chatter there was a precision to him, the aura of someone who had made very hard decisions in the past and was very much aware of the consequences of those decisions. And knew he'd have to make them again some day, and would do so willingly, without flinching. Someone who saw physics as more than theoretical, so close up that the equations broke apart and became meaningless, just lines scrawled onto paper, onto a blackboard, numbers nothing more than placeholders while impossible engines ground all the real variables to dust. And yet he kept hearing it narrated in Carl Sagan's voice.

"You want to know about Penny, right?" The barest flicker in the man's eyes was nothing more than inference. Leonard felt like he had been given a blank quiz and was still expected to know the answers. His throat had gone dry even as his heart kept trying to push blood to every extremity with a zealot's glee. "She lives in the apartment across the hall," he explained, wishing Brown's expression would give him some hint of what to say. Wishing he could stop shaking, or at least find a good reason to be trembling. "The one that the . . . the whatever horde you said was here. There were in there, your friend Tristian, he stabbed one. Or, he stabbed her blanket and they were in it." It sounded insane even to him, and he had spent entire nights debating whether _Deep Space Nine_ or _Babylon 5_ was more faithful to science. "So I brought her here. You sealed the building off so she can't leave or I'd make her leave." He found his voice rising, getting more heated even though he wasn't reacting against anything. And that violated all the science knew. _Every action has_. Finishing the thought made it real. But it didn't matter, it was the very basics. Disbelieving gravity didn't release you from its grasp. But maybe this man could. "Do you think I want her here? With God knows what running around here and . . . a sword! Did you know your friend has a damn _sword_? A real one?" He swallowed, rubbing at his throat and trying to bring himself back under control. "And I want to keep her here and I want to keep her out of the way before you two lunatics do something we can't get out of the way of . . ." He didn't know why all the frustrations were coming to light now, the missed opportunities, the realizations that Penny needed a shoulder and all he gave her was a joke and a fumbled phrase, Leslie Winkle's cold rejection and then cold acceptance and colder rejection again, the nights lying in his bed and trying to think of what it sounded like to hear someone say that they loved him and instead only hearing the goddamned _Star Trek _theme over and over. Maybe he had expected them to be part of a better world, shiny and sleek and all the answers readily accessible, a kind of world ruled by people like himself, where the scientists made the progress go round, where instead of counting sheep to fall asleep, people did what he did and practiced Fibonacci sequences. Or, worse, listened to nothing but the droning march of the constants of the universe, inexorable and unchangeable.

But no, their world was as messy and complicated and random as his was. Isn't that what Tristian had been trying to tell him? Brown had a gun and it probably didn't have a stun setting. That would have been silly, of course. Of course. "You don't understand, she's one of my best friends . . . and God, I know, you're probably thinking why would someone so hot want to hang out with a guy like me . . . but she is and she does and we owe this to her, to try to keep her safe. For all the times she puts up with our bizarre rules about where to eat, or all the crappy minutiae about video games that she doesn't care about and when we make her late for work because we've blocked the stairs again with props or when she tries to include us in things with her friends even though we don't fit in with them at all. Because she has no problem admitting that she knows us." He would need his inhaler soon. The elephant was planting itself on his chest, pressing his back against the door. He hoped that Penny couldn't hear him. He hoped she could, because he'd never have the guts to say any of this to her face. "And I don't know what kind of plan you've got here or what the hell you're even trying to do but . . ." It was so warm in here, now, like the time at summer camp that the older kids had convinced him that cows at the local farm had peed in the water and that cow urine would upset his lactose intolerance. So he sat on the shore and watched everyone play in the water, letting the heat encase him as a cocoon, the sun taking a potato peeler to the top layers of his epidermis and debating whether to just run into the water anyway. Trigger the allergy, say the hell with it and just make the first move. But he never did. He never had. It had always been left up to other people. "Leave her out of it. Out of all this. Please."

"Are you quite done?" Leonard turned sharply, expecting the next voice to be Brown's. But it was Sheldon speaking instead, his voice creased with a thinly veiled impatience.

"Yeah," Leonard finally stammered, surprised at the low hoarseness of his voice.

"Good. Because now we can get down to important business." Sheldon took a step forward, pointing at Brown. "Your weight and your fidgeting are destroying my mattress."

"Sheldon, please . . . not now . . ." but he was too tied to even argue. With his ear partway on the door he could hear talking in the other room but was unable to make out any words.

"No, I won't." With a gently oblivious patronizing tone, he told Brown, "The bed is uniquely molded to the perfect ratio of my height and weight and depth. Years of sleeping for the same amount of hours in the same exact spot have created a shallow trench that my body fits into like a key into a lock. That unlocking is what allows me to sleep." He pressed his hands together, looking all the while like he was trying very hard to be reasonable. "If you break or alter the lock, like you're doing, the key that is my body won't be able to fit anymore and I'll just have to wait outside, wishing I could get in to sleep."

"_Sheldon_," Leonard admonished, finally running out of patience. "This is not the most important thing we could be talking about right now."

His friend only raised an eyebrow. There were times when Sheldon would hold himself perfectly still but still be moving, like a kind of heat haze drawn on a clear window. This was one of those moments. "So instead we should talk about you elevating a simple carnal crush into some kind of all-consuming friendship, that demands we do whatever you feel it has to ask of us?" The edges of his voice were snarled, fractals gone wild and colliding at all the wrong speeds. The small was the large was the small again. Infinite variety was not so varied when you started seeing patterns. "You want to sleep with her, Leonard, and that's understandable because I'm told she's very attractive. But that's all it is. You don't want to help her out because she's Penny, but because of what she represents. As long as she sits in our living room, as long as she lives across the hall and talks to you and eats with us . . . you think you have a chance. That's what she is."

"That's not true." There was a Batman statue watching them both, ready to leap down and take on the miscreants in his endless quest for justice. Outside the building quantum sparks erupted in the wake of reactions that time couldn't measure, living epics in the space it took to start to think to think about blinking. Nature talked in ephemeral whispers and knotted shades, endless wonderful conversations. But inside all they had were words. And words were not science. And all he knew was science. "She's your friend, too."

Sheldon nodded sagely. "By conventional standards, she is. We have exchanged gifts and engaged in misadventures and challenged each other in video games. As far as my limitations are defined, perhaps I'd do anything for her. Because of a napkin or because that's what I want to do. It's not for me to say." He looked down and then back at Leonard again, his eyes blinking slowly in that way he sometimes had, going all lizard-like. It only happened when he was stressed, when he was trying to pretend that nothing was wrong. "But that wasn't your question. You wanted to know if that was the most important thing we could be talking about. And I say it isn't. I was talking about order, and structure." His fingers formed a triangle, each side forming perfect angles. "It's what the whole world and the universe depends on. Guarantees. The idea that some things will be the same, putting a lie to the notion that we live in a totally random universe and that each instance is defined only by whim or the chance collision of molecules. Taking our tiny piece of it and ensuring that it will be able to follow some predictable patterns. That some certainties will remain, no matter how much the rest falls into disorder." The triangle collapsed elegantly, becoming nothing more than stricken lines looking for a shape. The eyes that regarded Leonard were completely sober and clear. "As far as I'm concerned, Leonard, there is _nothing_ more important than that."

Leonard didn't know what to say. A thousand sci-fi cliches thundered through his brain but none of them applied because they were nothing but the product of scripts and special effects. There were aliens in the wires. There was a forcefield being generated in his living room. And his friend's argument that whether someone should be lying on his bed suddenly made the most sense of anything in the world. He was losing it but he didn't know where it would be lost to, or how it would depart.

Then a new voice interjected. "If you're both quite done . . ."

Leonard's attention snapped back to the center of the room. _Oh, I can't believe I completely forgot about you_. Brown hadn't moved from his original position, was someone managing to stare at them both, finding some new and odd center that encompassed their positions.

Bouncing a little on the bed, he said, "I think it's safe to say it's _my_ turn to talk now, hm?"


	7. Chapter 7

* * * * *

"What do you think he's talking to them about in there?" Penny fidgeted a little on the couch, playing with a wayward strand of hair.

Tristian had been crouched on the other side of the room, inspecting the juryrigged lamp. He didn't even look up when Penny spoke. "Who, Joe? Knowing him he's probably instructing them on the . . . finer points of the game, so they stay in character, or, ah, explaining how the next scenario is going to go."

"He seems to take it very seriously," Penny noted with a frown. She folded her legs on the couch so that she seemed even smaller than she was, watching Tristian almost primly.

Tristian shrugged, standing up and turning toward her at the same time. It was the motion of a waterspout dancing across the surface, the sword's light wrapping against him and sliding away. "He's been doing this for a long time, so he tends to get very focused in these types of situations." Slipping over to an outlet, he tapped the wall over it, listening as if he could hear the electricity sloughing inside the wires. "He wants to get the best out of people."

"Oh come on, it's just a game," Penny protested. "There's no reason to get so worked up over it."

"Maybe," Tristian agreed. He made his way over to the kitchen, the sword leaving an afterimaged slime trail in his wake. Penny couldn't take her eyes off it, it was a comet streaking across a dull landscape, far brighter and sharper than any toy should be. "But if you're not going to play the game right, why even bother playing at all? That's probably what he's trying to get across to them."

Penny smiled knowingly. "Oh, the boys take their games _very_ seriously."

"I've been getting that impression," Tristian commented, casting another look around the apartment. "Some of this stuff I didn't know was even _out_ yet." He laid the sword down very carefully on the counter, making sure that it balanced on the hilt and that the shaft didn't touch any surfaces. "Don't get me wrong, he's not like this all the time. He's one of the funniest people I know, honestly. But there are times when you get a lot of . . . responsibility and you have to know when to switch it off so things can get done. This is one of those times." He started going through some of the cabinets, opening one and scanning the contents before shutting it and moving onto the next. "You'll see when this is over, he's almost like a different person."

Penny rolled her eyes. "I hope so. Because after five minutes I'm ready to punch him in the face." Tristian didn't respond and she hoped that she hadn't insulted him by saying bad things about his friend. He seemed fairly nice, all things told, if touched with the same bit of eccentricity that Brown had. But she was getting used to people having a few quirks. Starting to like it, some days. Even if she'd probably never admit that outloud. Idly, she scratched at her forearm, almost hugging herself.

"Good luck." Tristian closed another cabinet door, then stepped back as if trying to decide which door might hold the prize. "He's taken his fair share of punches over the years, another one really isn't going to bother him." The lightness in his voice hid a flatness, and it wasn't clear which was the serious undercurrent and which was the joke.

Penny watched him for another few seconds before impulsively leaping off the couch, crossing the room quietly and stopping inches from the other side of the counter. Tristian had his back to her, one hand halfway to another cabinet. The sword was pointed toward her, a red sun squeezed into a tube and stretched out into solid dough. What the hell was it made out of? She had seen a similar one that Leonard had won off the auction, when she caught him dancing around the apartment making those strange _vroom_ noises while swinging it. When he caught her looking he had stumbled and tried to look natural, but had only fallen over the chair. She had laughed at the time, and apologized for laughing but a little later she even regretted walking in on him. In those few seconds before he noticed there was a lightness to him, an ease that he never had with her, a playful whimsy that seemed utterly private. And part of her wanted to capture that for herself, because there were times when she felt like she was losing it. Maybe that was why she stuck around.

That toy had been one thing but this one seemed . . . heavier? If that was possible. What could it possibly be-

"Don't," Tristian said, as soft as snow and as implacable as a wave.

Penny pulled her back with a flinch, not even aware that she had been reaching out toward the sword. Tristian was facing her now but she was almost sure he hadn't been when he said the word. The hard abruptness in his voice had been surprising, a complete change from his so far understated quiet.

Yet it was that quiet that had returned when he spoke again. "I'm sorry . . . I didn't mean to come off like that. It's . . . it's very delicate, that's all." He was already taking it away, off the counter and holding it with a practiced ease at his side. "And it's the only one I have."

A little confused, both at his and her own actions, Penny stammered a little. "I just . . . it's really bright." For effect she shielded her eyes, even though the sword was safely behind the counter, although its glow kept creeping up around the edge, a puddle attempting to escape its own gravity. "It's like being outside, looking at it. I was . . . I was wondering if there was some way to turn it off or, or dim it somehow."

"There was once." He turned back to the cabinets and for a second she thought he wasn't going to elaborate. But he kept talking. "But it broke and I'm not sure how to fix it. So now it's stuck on." His shrug was more a ripple from the rear view. "I don't mind, it helps me get used to it. Sometimes you need the reminder."

_What an odd thing to say about a toy. _Penny frowned. "And you can't just like take the batteries out or something?"

Tristian laughed at that, and she was startled by how natural it sounded, how different from his normal voice. Like he was keeping himself tightly under control and her comment had caught him off guard. "I only wish. But I lost the instruction manual a long time ago and the people who made it told me I've got to figure it out on my own." He whipped it up so that it was inches from his face, engaging in a brief staring contest before snapping the blade back down. "I think I'm doing all right, most days." Another cabinet was opened as he continued methodically down the line.

Penny had been leaning on the counter with both forearms when she seemed to come to a decision. "Maybe you are," she said, pushing herself off and curving around it lithely. "So maybe _you_ can tell me this." He still wasn't looking at her, engaged in his own task.

At least he wasn't until she slammed the cabinet door shut, nearly closing it on his hand. Tristian turned toward her, the sword swinging away until it was nearly touching the back of his calf. The twin uplift of his eyebrows was the only hint of a question.

Penny tilted her head a little to the side and smiled up at him, one hand still flat on the door. "Why do you play the game?" she whispered.

* * * * *

Brown sat up on the bed, pulling his knees up to his chin and then dropping into a crosslegged stance with military precision. "Okay, couple things, boys." He started to tick off points on his fingers. "First, its hard for me to convey how much I _really_ didn't want to get you involved in any of this. Don't get me wrong, you seem nice and all, but things are rapidly getting complicated and I don't have the mental capacity or the patience to pay attention to six things going on at once. Five is my limit, frankly." He might have been kidding but then again, his face offered no revelation either way. Instead his gaze kept going from Sheldon to Leonard and back again, as regular as a clock, or a worn down heartbeat. He folded his hands together and leaned forward, the bed creaking under his movement. "As far as our crises usually go, this one is fairly benign." His gaze sharpened, running on a laserline. "_For the moment_. Whatever the hell the hive is doing, I don't think they're out to hurt anyone. But they're quite willing to put up a fight."

"Just tell us what to do," Sheldon said, with an intensity that even Brown blinked against. "Since you deputized us, we've become soldiers for the duration of this mission." He struck a stance that seemed both barbed and ungainly at the same time, his eyes nearly popping. "I've studied Venusian karate in nearly all its aspects . . . that is not a skill you want to turn down, Commander."

"That's . . . nice," Brown commented neutrally. "But there's, ah, no one on Venus."

"Oh." Sheldon still held the posture, oddly poised, like an atomic model that had suddenly gone limp. "What about Jupiter?"

"Big floating gasbags," Brown responded instantly, almost automatically. "But they'd probably prefer to sell you a bottle of solar wind before-" He halted in mid-word and shook himself, muttering, "Why the hell do I keep letting you people sidetrack me?"

Leonard thought this was a good time to jump in. He had seen Sheldon try to demonstrate his fighting prowess before and the local gym still had his picture up on the door. "But you don't understand . . ." he added quickly, praying that Brown wouldn't look at him. "We can help you, now that we know what's going on, you can use that to your advantage. You don't have to worry about keeping us in the dark. You . . . you have complete freedom of movement." _Hey, that sounded pretty compelling._

And then the man glared at him again, and it was like being drowned by a glacier. It was slow and you knew it was coming but there was still no hope of getting out of the way in time. It was just waiting.

When Brown spoke again, his voice had taken on the quality of a low-flying aircraft. "Which brings me to my second point." He pointed toward the door, and the world sealed away outside. "Why did we need to bring _her_ here?"

"I told you, her name is Penny and she's our-" But Brown cut him off so abruptly that the blow felt physical.

"I _heard_ the speech earlier," he snapped, rolling into a crouch and carefully balancing on the balls of his feet. He almost expected Sheldon to go behind him and start smoothing out the groove he was leaving behind. "And while it was very lovely, it doesn't answer my question."

"The aliens were in her apartment." Leonard's throat could have absorbed an ocean. "What did you expect me to do?"

"My original plan would have been to have Tristian secure the room and then put the forcefield up there, so she would be safe from any further invasions." The coldness in his voice was withering. "This way the only place they could come was here, where we were. And I could have taken care of them." He sighed, pressing his knuckles against his chin. "But now we've tipped our hand, and they're probably working on getting around the forcefield now. Or just doing whatever the hell they want, because we're in here. Because I'm dealing with _you_ and _her_ . . ." his voice was rising but he bit it off before it went any louder.

"I'm sorry," Leonard said, and the words had an escape velocity so daunting that a nuclear engine could barely launch them.

"It's not completely his fault," Sheldon interjected, having letting his former combat stance collapse. "He comes from a society that values romantic social interactions between people of differing genders as the only form of measuring one's success or failure in that society. Thus all his other accomplishments, which while insignificant compared to mine, are meaningless because he has not managed to have intercourse with any female he has yet encountered."

"I have too!" Leonard shot back immediately. "And way more than you!" The long silence that followed this suggested that it wasn't really the most appropriate topic at the moment. "Well, uh, not that I'm, ah, keeping score or anything. I really don't go bragging about my conquests, not that I have a lot of them to speak of and . . ." he added quickly, doing his best to shrink against the door. Another silence. Then, in an even quieter voice: "Please don't judge me."

"See?" Sheldon pointed out. "This is what our decadent pleasure-driven society has driven and reduced him to. Unsuccessful in science and in love." He shook his head, tsking as he did. "It's a sad situation, really. But I've been trying to help him as best I can."

"I can tell," Brown replied dryly. "And one day I'm sure it will make a wonderful romantic comedy. But I _really_ don't have time to play psychologist for you two, as career defining as that might be." He swung his feet off the bed, with the rest of his body following, landing with a mild thump. "But we are going to have to discuss what to do with your little friend in the other room."

"Do?" Just from the tone of his voice Leonard knew he wasn't going to like where this was going. "What do you mean . . . do?"

"It's bad enough that you're tagging along, but I'm dealing with it because I've come to the conclusion that beyond launching you into orbit for the duration of this, you're going to follow me around until this is over." He sat down on the edge of the bed, leaning forward and bracing himself with his arms. "She's a different story, however."

"Just don't tell her anything," Leonard said, hoping that sounded like a reasonable argument. "We've got her convinced it's all a stupid game. Right? That's how you people are, right? All secretive and stuff?"

"Leonard is phrasing it all wrong," Sheldon said, giving his friend a pitying look. "Once again he fails to understand the context of the world that you live in and keeps trying to apply his own experiences to something that he knows nothing about." He smiled a little. "Fortunately, I'm capable of translating his attempt to relate to you into an example that may be a bit closer to home." He crept near Brown, leaning in as if telling him a deep secret. "You're just like a branch of the Syndicate. Except, you know, you're the good guys."

A frown was Brown's only response.

"He means _The X-Files_," Leonard prompted, shooting his friend a sarcastic smile. "In case you can't relate to it."

Brown bit his lip and looked down at his knees for a second, clasping his hands together tighter. "Look. Okay. Listen, you're right, we do generally operate in secret. But part of it is force of habit. It's just easier to make things happen when you don't have people who aren't involved looking over your shoulder." If the comment was meant to include them, his expression didn't indicate it. "But what you're not getting is that we can't do this in half-measures." He met their quizzical looks with a steady one of his own. "You two know what's going on and hey, that's fine, whatever. It really doesn't bother me. Tell the local newspaper for all I care. Oh no, aliens in the apartment . . . I'm sure that will get lots of press."

"We can't tell her," Leonard insisted. "She won't understand. She's not-"

"That _isn't_ my problem," Brown answered firmly. "I can't juggle taking care of this while making sure that everyone in this building is safe _and_ play along with some ridiculous charade that you've concocted because you don't think your girlfriend across the hall can handle the fact that aliens are replacing electricity in the wires."

"You have to admit, it does sound pretty weird when you put it that way," Leonard ventured weakly.

Brown stood up from the bed and without even seeming to move he was suddenly in front of Leonard. Sheldon was hanging back slightly, his arms bent but stiffened and at his sides. The way he always looked when someone would question him at a conference, in that second before he would blister the room with an answer. The rare times when he appeared to believe something was worth defending, even if he felt it was self-evident. But Leonard saw none of that, the only horizon in his view was Brown's drab and dark uniform, and the curl of his displeasure.

"Clearly I'm going to have to put this a different way, because I'm not getting through to you," he said with a soft frustration. Leaning in a few inches, he said plainly, "One of us is going to have to come clean and tell her what's going on." Lightly, he tapped at Leonard's shoulder, tiny bullets striking the skin with cannonball flair. "I'll let you go first, but if you can't, then I'm going to tell her."

* * * * *

"The game?" Tristian asked, letting the word dangle evasively at the end of his sentence.

"Come on, don't do this to me," Penny said with some exasperation, banging her hand on the cabinet with a peeved expression. "Don't go all into character on me now like we're still in some silly science-fiction scene. It's bad enough that I have to watch them do it, you struck me as having a chance at being somewhat normal." She stepped away, leaning against the counter and folding her arms across her chest. "Can we just drop the Jedi crap for a second?"

Tristian studied her, turning away slightly but still regarding her in a sidelong fashion. Finally, his stance suddenly relaxed and he put one hand on the edge of the sink, opening his stance up somewhat. "Fine," he replied, his face utterly serious. "But I'm not turning the sword off."

Penny, who had been staring at the kitchen island, glanced back at him warily, unsure. When he finally couldn't keep his expression still any longer and broke into a sly smile, she grinned back at him, shaking her head and running a hand through her hair. "Okay, fine. Fine. You can keep your little light-up toy on. But if you're not careful you're going to let it define you."

Instead of responding he glanced out the kitchen window. The disintegrating light of the dimming day touched the curve of his eyes and slipped right off the edges. "I'm trying to avoid that," he said eventually, carefully. "But it's not like there's any other characters I can really play."

"Oh, I'm sure there are," Penny assured him, watching him curiously, as if expecting different words out of him. "But why play at all?"

"Why?" He tucked his chin into his chest briefly, considering the question. When he did look up it was slightly askew of Penny but she could still see the marginal humor in his eyes. "If you want the honest reason, it was kind of sprung on me."

Penny gave him a disbelieving look. "Like you just walked into a room one day and someone was like, 'Congratulations, you're a Jedi now?' I think that's a new one."

"And yet here you are, playing a princess," Tristian pointed out. "Unless that really was part of your plans for the day."

"Right." She blew out a puff of air so that her bangs flared upwards briefly. "All right, so I guess we're both suckers." She raised herself up on the balls of her feet. "Though I like to think that my role was inside me the whole time."

Tristian laughed. "That's pretty much what they told me. Good to see that you fell for it, too." Penny made a face at him, which he weathered with equanimity, brushing it aside as he continued. "No, it turned out that the person who was playing my role was, um, they dropped out and they needed an extra person in order to go into the game."

"So Joe suggested you?"

"Actually, no, he didn't." Penny shot him an odd look at that he didn't seem to notice. "It was some other . . . I can't quite call them friends, but they're not just acquaintances, it's . . . did you ever have a weird uncle that only visited once in a while and did some things that were kind of astounding but was sort of frustrating at the same time?"

"My Uncle Barry," Penny said, chewing on a fingernail. "He was a . . . minstrel? The only one in Nebraska, he used to tell me, because nobody else had the guts for it. I don't know if _guts_ was the right word for walking for days down roads with cornstalks on either side and singing for anyone who would listen . . . but that's what he called it." She let her arm drop and tracing an idle line on her shirt. "He'd show up without warning, which always drove my parents nuts and he'd insist on singing for his supper, he'd go out and make us all watch while he serenaded the corn." She laughed without sound, rubbing her elbow while her gaze refused to focus. "Uncle Barry would always tell my father that it would help the corn grow, he'd get a bigger yield. My father would just humor him and roll his eyes and pour another shot of brandy into his coffee as my mother would ask him again when he was leaving. All that singing all the time, a capella, with a guitar, a tambourine, for a little while a ukulele before my father _accidentally_ left it near a plow. He drove us nuts."

Her frown was wistful and present and close all at the same time. "But there were times . . . late at night he'd wake me up and we'd go out to the barn. And we'd sit on bales of hay and . . ." she stopped, glancing at Tristian. "This sounds silly, right?"

"You're talking to a man holding a giant glowing toy sword," Tristian answered with quiet humor. "I really don't think I'm in any position to judge."

"Right," she said, giggling a little, running her hands down her pants and then clasping them together, as if nervous. "So we'd . . . we'd sit there and he'd teach me these songs he knew. Not like the silly ones that he'd sing at bars or out on the road, but really old ones, or ones that he had made up . . . they were like little stories, some were love songs and some were sad." Her hand was tapping against her thigh, perhaps trying to find the old rhythm. But it goes and it slips and you've got to let the step skip before it can come around again. "And I'd watch him sing and it would be . . . he'd vanish. Like, not literally but his face, his posture, it would all change. Even if it was just some song about a frontier maiden pining for her woodsman lover to come home, he'd close his eyes and look up at the sky . . . and sing. For those few minutes it would feel like he really was waiting, like he'd been waiting forever but the promise was worth it. So he'd wait just a little while longer. Then he'd stop and he'd open his eyes to give me that goofy grin of his and he'd be my strange Uncle Barry again." Penny closed her own eyes briefly, a certain tightness lingering as a memory bobbed too close to the skin, threatening to puncture every layer. "He told me . . . he said the one reason he loved singing was that if the song was right, you could become someone else. You could stop being who you were for a little bit and learn what it was like to be another person. And if you were really good, convince other people that _they_ were that person as well, just by listening to you. He said I was his favorite audience, because I always went wherever his song was going." Her sigh wasn't a letting go so much as a clinging, allowing the air to seep from you so that someone can hug you that much tighter. "He drove us nuts." It was the official story. "I haven't seen him in years, not since I left home to come here. I wonder sometimes if he still visits, and if he does, if he goes out to the barn at night and sings a song that convinces him that I'm there. That someone is listening." She took a strand of hair and brought it under her nose, as if trying to inhale a small part of home still attached to her. "He couldn't teach me how to sing, of course, my voice just sucks. It's a lost cause. But sometimes I think about how it wouldn't be so bad if I could do that, become another person. Just for a little while."

Tristian studied her, drumming his fingers along the sink. "One thing I've learned about this game is that you can become something else, but it won't change who you are."

"Sometimes I wonder . . ." she murmured, letting the words trail off into something insubstantial without attempting to reel them back. Snapping herself back into the conversation, she asked, "So that's how you met Joe?"

"Basically. We kind of knew each other already, but had never really talked to each other." His free hand rubbed the opposite shoulder, like finding an old wound. "When I first started, ah, playing, they thought they'd be able to . . . ease me into the game. But it turned out we timed it poorly and something big happened right when I started." There was memory in the phrasing, the way that rocks held the river in place even as the water kept wearing them down. The view was the same above as below, until you found the line that separated. "And the guys who got me into it were called away, because they were playing special forces types and this big war was going on. So I was in the middle of this huge mess, people running around who I didn't know all doing things I didn't understand and I had to figure out the rules on the fly."

Penny smirked. "Oh, I've been there. Ever play _Halo 3_?"

Tristian laughed again, shaking his head while mouthing the word "no." Penny noticed that he was very careful not to let the sword touch the ground, no matter how much he seemed to forget that he was holding it. _That's some dedication_, she marveled silently, not sure if she was supposed to be impressed or not. "I faked my way through it by some miracle, to this day I'm still not sure how. I met Joe some time after that, it turned out we were playing for the same team. And he was a big help, explaining to me exactly how things worked and what to expect. It's what I needed, because to be honest I was feeling really lost." The sigh that graced the edges of his voice wasn't an addition but a component, a puzzle piece that couldn't be removed even as it smeared the corner of the picture. "Since then it's been interesting. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of days when none of this makes any sense at all to me. I've been in places where everybody seems to be speaking a different language, where all the rules that we thought we had down got tossed out, and done things that I've never expected to."

"And now you're a pro at it," Penny said. "Teaching other Jedi your ways." She was surprised to hear a little admiration in her own voice when she said that. But there was something about him that even if she was playing a game and someone gave her a ridiculous sword, she would listen to what he had to say. And he'd be able to say it in a way that didn't seem silly. Like the time when the boys tried to explain particle physics to her with a longwinded metaphor that included the cast of _Lost_ and the various hosts of _Who Wants to be a Millionaire_. Leonard actually got Sheldon to draw her a chart connecting it all together, and they gave a little speech that started with "Now, let's imagine Regis Philbin as . . . charm."

"Not quite." It wasn't certain at first whether he was commenting on the pro label or the notion of teaching other people. "It . . . that's what I thought would happen at first, too. That I'd run into other Jedi and we could trade off stories and ideas, people who had been doing it longer than me who could give me some clue as to how to proceed. That's not the case, as it turns out. It didn't hit me at first, not running into other people who were like . . . who were playing the same kind of character as me. Then they finally confirmed it, after I pressed them on it." The sword was lifted, the shadow of it neatly bisecting his face. A crimson splatter that hit the wall behind him might have been his face, distorted into the boundaries of this too small space. "It was just me."

"Oh." The way he said it, with a brief weariness, like watching autumn leaves fall and not realize until later it was the last time, made her forget for a second that they were just talking about some silly game. "But you could always find a rulebook or something, right? Go online and download some manual?"

He let the sword drop again. "Nobody ever writes this stuff down. And what I do isn't the same thing as what Joe does, so he can't really help me beyond keeping me sane when things start to spiral out of control. I've got to figure it out on my own, and nobody is going to tell me if I'm right or wrong."

"That's a terrible game," she breathed, without realizing right away what she had said. She instantly wanted to take it back, not wanting to insult him. Which surprised her, a year or so ago she would have thought nothing of dismissing a nerdy activity, not even considering it worth talking about. Yet here she was, feeling bad because this stupid little game was seemingly stacked against him. _What are you two doing to me?_ But there was no malice in her question, and maybe even a little affection. It never occurred to ask him why he didn't just quit. It didn't seem like an option.

"At first that's what I thought, too," he agreed. "But, when you think about it . . . isn't that the kind of game we've always wanted to play? Where we could make up our own rules and decide for ourselves how it was going to go? This way if things went wrong, we had no one to blame but ourselves . . . but if it went perfectly, if it worked out, it really meant something. It wouldn't be due to luck or dice rolls or because you were able to bend the rules to suit you . . . that's what makes the difference."

"I don't know," Penny said warily. "I'd need structure. I'd need some kind of script, or I'd feel like I wouldn't know what I was doing. I'm no good at improvising."

"You learn. You have to. Because people are counting on you." She had a quick mental image of a bunch of people in ragged alien costumes all standing in a cafeteria with little signs on the table indicating which alien world it was. And all of them cheering when Tristian walked into the room. It was absurd and yet felt sort of right. "Standing around waiting for someone to tell you what to do just doesn't work. Not here. You make guesses and adapt as best you can and do what you think is right at the time. If you try hard enough, most of the time it winds up working out. At least that's what I believe." He sucked at his upper lip, creating a small "mm" sound. "It's like life, in that sense. I think that's why I've come to enjoy it, most days. Even if I am more Luke Skywalker than Obi-Wan." That last bit was said with an offhand shrug and twist of the mouth.

Penny smiled. "Yeah, but Luke is the one that saves the day. Obi-Wan gets killed."

Tristian raised an eyebrow in exaggerated surprise. "Not bad. I wouldn't think that's in your usual genre."

Blushing a little, she said, "Oh, wow, I didn't think that was right. Blame the guys. I think they're rubbing off on me." She craned her neck to stare around Tristian. "They've been in there for a long time."

"It's a complicated little game we play," Tristian said evenly, also eyeing the bedroom doors. The lights skipped into a brief flicker, causing his eyes to dart to the nearest bulb. But then they flared back to normal, with barely a second in between. Penny didn't even seem to notice.

"Yet you keep playing it." Penny crossed over to the counter island and hopped up on it, swinging her legs idly. "Doesn't it ever strike you as weird? I mean, you're standing here in some strangers' apartment, running around a building for no real reason while pretending to be some kind of space-knight . . . for fun? This is fun for you? Honestly?"

"It's a bit unorthodox, I'll admit. But there's benefits to it." Tristian crossed his legs at the ankles and shifted his weight against the counter, angling himself so that he could talk to her and still keep an eye on the rest of the room. "After all, you do meet all kinds of interesting people." He nodded his head toward her.

Penny laughed. "Flatterer."

Tristian only gave a small mocking bow as his acknowledgment.

"But . . . you really do enjoy all this?" Tristian looked up to give her another humorous response but stopped when he saw the sudden serious look on her face. There was a grayness in her eyes that hadn't been there a second earlier, the sky itself parting to reveal nothing but clouds. "It all makes sense to you?"

"I do. It does. In its way." He shifted again, as if trying to make himself recede. "But that isn't your question."

"Can I ask you something? A favor?" Those weren't the questions either, they cam out too quickly to even be considered properly imperative. Tristian didn't answer, merely waited. His silence almost scared her off from asking but then she pushed the heels of her hands against the counter as if bracing herself.

"When this . . . whatever it is, this game is done . . . can you teach me how to play?" The extra snap in her speech to indicate she was kidding wasn't present. The only action Tristian took was to not move, perhaps preparing to find out which direction this was going to fall into. Her eyes had every part of him. Her boots thumped an insistent rhythm into the counter, a pulse gone erratic. "Please? Because . . . because I think it's time I learned. Will you show me?" Outside, background radiation creates ambient symphonies. Outside, hydrogen atoms careen in the dark spaces and a million miles apart is being as close as lovers. "Please?" In the gaps there's nothing but talk and tapestries, outside.

While inside, all there is are questions.

"Can you show me what it takes to be exactly what you are?"


	8. Chapter 8

* * * * *

He didn't dare agree. He didn't have the nerve to disagree. But regardless of what Leonard decided, Brown was going to do what he wanted anyway. That was the intractable nature of him. Leonard was only just now starting to see that. People like he and Tristian, there were inevitable in a sense, possessed of a forward motion so relentless that if it was drawn into an arc, the curve of it couldn't be properly plotted and instead it would look like a straight line with no end in sight in either direction. That was the truth of it, he suspected, behind the ray guns and the regenerations and all the talk about aliens. There were certain matters in this world that needed to be taken care of and at some point they had decided, perhaps with others, that they would be the people who would do it.

It seemed brutal and wonderful and exciting and frightening, all at once. Leonard wanted to see it so badly, he found himself willing to agree to anything. To stare at theory and have it be real, to walk down streets where people debated the nature of time the same way he and the guys heatedly debated whether to have Thai or burgers on a wild card night. To see the constellations from another angle and not recognize any of them. To stand in air that might kill him if even a drop leaked into the spacesuit, or hear voices like songs without words. _I'll keep her out of your way so you can do what needs to be done. _He could negotiate this with Brown, he had half-gotten the promise out of Tristian during their little role-playing sequence in Penny's apartment but he could agree to tell Penny and . . . and what? _I'll tell her and she'll see and you can finish this. _A visit, that's all. A mission, not one of the dangerous ones. _You'll have all the time in the world. Well, more than you already do. _To feel momentum unhindered by friction and to see the stars as something other than dead photographs. _Sure, then,_ he heard himself saying, with the confidence of a man who had been through the deck and knew what cards it held, _I'll do it. On one condition_. It would have been that simple. Nearly everyone here was reasonable.

Of course, Sheldon had to go and ruin it all.

"She won't believe either of you," he interjected, with that weird jittery calm he had when all the numbers had fallen into place and all that remained was the reading of the results. The first time he had met Sheldon, he had been walking by his lab only to find that it was on fire. Some strange machine he developed had sparked and flames were slowly spreading toward a rack of chemicals that Leonard had been pretty sure wouldn't turn into perfume when heated. He had called out to Sheldon and the other man had simply turned toward him, with smoke beginning to stain the ceiling, tapped the machine and said in that blissfully scientific voice of his, _See, I was right. The polarities do reverse when agitated._

That might not have been how they first met. But it was a story he still liked to tell.

"She's not going to believe _you_," Sheldon pointed toward Leonard, "because no matter what you say she's going to feel that its merely part of the game that we're playing and treat it as such. Which is to say, with her usual mix of confusion and humoring that so often applies to anything you ever tell her. Unless you're asking her on a date. Then it's just humoring."

"Sheldon-"

"ADS5S5," he corrected even before Leonard was finished speaking, with the bored tone of someone telling a child yet again where exactly the round peg went.

"We're not in character right now!" Leonard seethed.

"_Au contraire_, for that to be true the game master would have to call a pause in the proceedings or declare the game ended. Until then we simply can't assume that because we are discussing something completely unrelated to the game in a back room that the game itself is still not in play."

"Sheldon. In case you haven't noticed . . . _we made the game up_. There is no actual game." Leonard was beginning to have trouble keeping track of what he was supposed to be arguing for and against.

"Oh." Sheldon looked briefly nonplussed and then gave his short, shy laugh. "Right. And next thing you're going to tell me is that there aren't any aliens. We know _that's_ true."

This time Sheldon and Brown exchanged glances. Before Leonard can add anything else, Brown held a hand up and said, "I've got this one." Taking a step forward, he said firmly, "ADS5S5, we're going to need an analysis of the situation."

"Oh, _now _you need my help." His voice was the same and yet had taken on more of a clipped quality, like all the finer edges had been sanded off forcibly into hard corners. "You and the bounty hunter were content to argue over the princess all day, it seemed. Now that you've reached an impasse, it's time to ask the droid." He folded his arms over his chest. "I am not simply a dispensing machine for answers, you know."

"No, but you could be reprogrammed into one," Brown snapped back and Sheldon's double take might not have been totally role playing. "So why not cut the peevishness and help us figure this out before we're overrun by people who would have little trouble turning you into the world's most expensive set of Christmas lights."

"Actually, in the Hiltus Cigma system, the Christmas lights are made of local captured phosphorescent gases and are often worshipped as the contained spirits of past ancestors-"

"How about we stay on-topic?" Brown said with carefully controlled calm. "The princess hasn't been given the full story on what's going on in this situation, and I'm saying that we should come clean. But here you are claiming that . . ." he glanced at Leonard. "You know, I never got your fancy science-fiction name."

"Uh . . ." Leonard had honestly never expected things to go this far, although in retrospect the progression did seem effortlessly logical. _And now I'm starting to sound like him. God help me_. "There wasn't, ah, really time for introductions but I'm . . ." a thousand cool names skidded past him in a blur, meteors vaporizing themselves against the shield. ". . . Deckard Jones." He refused to look at Sheldon, but could hear the man snicker anyway.

"Dek Jones and I," Brown slid back into the flow of his own conversation without missing a beat, "aren't going to be able to convince her of anything. You've already explained the princess won't believe Jones because of their sordid shared past."

"Well, we don't really have a _past_ . . ."

"But what about me?" Brown finished. "What wouldn't she believe me?"

Sheldon's eyes went distant briefly and Leonard could really believe that he was calculating the probabilities and possibilities of the situation. "Because she doesn't trust you," he said bluntly, his voice gone hollow. "Because of what you are, a representation of an evil empire, because you feel that your authority, even diminished, is still absolute, even though you are among people who aren't directly under your command." His eyes narrowed a little, sensors focusing with a precision that bordered on the microscopic. "You've proven to her in your brief time together that you have a goal and will say and do anything to forward that goal. Any attempt to convince of a different situation will merely be seen as another facet of that ambition."

"Is that all?" Brown said archly. He tapped the end of his nose and looked down, furrowing his brow. "Then you're suggesting that's best to let the situation remain as it is, and all the little lies and fictions in place?"

"Not at all. Eventually she's going to realize that what is going on isn't quite how anyone has described it to her, and the longer this goes on the more likely it becomes. Given her highly emotional state and tendency to take impulsive actions regardless of how feasible or logical it might be, chances are she will do something rash that will only impede your own efforts or have her come to harm."

"Really, now?" Brown murmured, not seeming to be bothered by this. "Any idea on how that might manifest?"

Sheldon frowned. "Taking into account her current mood, the amount of time she spends in the apartment, how much sleep she lost by us waking her up, the proximity to her proverbial 'time of the month' and her experience with actual aliens . . . I would suggest that she will attempt to kick a non-material extraterrestrial entity in its nether regions. Preceded or followed by quite a bit of screaming."

"Hm." Brown clasped his hands behind his back, gave Leonard a sidelong glance. "Quite the spitfire you've got there, apparently." Leonard only smiled weakly in response, not even capable of bringing up a titter. "That presents to us a bit of a problem, then. Unless . . . why don't _you_ tell her, ADS5S5." In a way it rolled off the tongue better than his actual name. Leonard couldn't believe that thought even occurred to him. "Surely she wouldn't have any reason to doubt you, being you're a . . . droid and all."

Sheldon smiled patiently. "While that is an immensely logical idea, there are numerous factors that would present complications. Her inability to grasp the hard logic of my arguments, as she has demonstrated in the past, is quite possibly the biggest stumbling block. Her general lack of education regarding science, probably stemming from a sheltered life amongst palace walls, will not assist us in explaining to her the unique dangers she faces from these bounty hunters. She has also many times failed to grasp situations with the utter seriousness and gravity required of them . . ."

"Are those the only problems?" Brown muttered to Leonard out the side of his mouth.

"Not quite," Leonard replied in the same manner. "She also thinks he's insane."

"Ah."

". . . notably during the Tuscan Raid Incident when no matter how clearly it was proven to her, she would not accept that certain fluctuations in the ambient temperature of the supermarket could adversely affect the expiration of the milk products with a margin as great as plus or minus two hours." He sniffed in a very un-robot-like fashion. "If she had simply let me finish my corrections on their thermostat system, we'd all be much better off. The security guard would not have recognized my disguise."

"I don't see where she gets that idea at all." Brown shook his head and sighed, sliding his hands into his pockets and leaning with his back against the door, tilting his head toward the ceiling and closing his eyes. "Listen, boys, we can't keep up this little charade forever, not if we want to finish this. She's going to have to find out, and I'd rather it not be a shocking surprise. That kind of thing only works on TV, people don't like it so much in real life unless it involves a vacation to Hawaii or a new car. So if you want this to be a little more nuanced than _let's just tell her_, you're going to have to come up with something better."

"It won't matter," Sheldon intoned, the phrase perfectly chiseled.

"Well, call me optimistic, but I rather like to think it does-"

"Which she'll discover very soon, when the Hive arrives."

Brown's eyes snapped open. "I'm sorry, what?"

As all the lights in the room swooned.

* * * * *

The silence between them seemed to hold its own conversation, the results of which caused Penny's eyes to go wide. "Oh God, no," she said, seemingly to a person who wasn't Tristian. "That wasn't what I meant at all." She hid her face in her hands even as Tristian watched the display, still trying to catch up to the original question. "That came out totally wrong."

"I was going to say, I really didn't think you wanted me to tell you all about the ins and outs on trying to use the Force," Tristian replied with brisk humor. But even so there to seem to be a noticeable pause between his thinking the words and speaking them. "I just wave my hand around and say things that sound important and everyone seems to buy that. Don't ask me why, but it works."

Penny giggled a little, although she was still hiding her face. "I can kind of see that," she said, her voice muffled. Sitting up straight and blinking, she did her best to compose herself, the flushing receding from her face. "All right. Let me try that again."

"By all means," Tristian said politely, taking the opportunity to go searching through the cabinets again.

Penny took a deep breath. Something about the question seemed to be clinging to her, a cat with claws caught in the fabric of a shirt, refusing to be fully dislodged. And even if it could be, all that would do was distort the surface. Her eyes shifted to the bedroom door, as if expecting a cue of sorts. "How do you do it? That's what I wanted you to tell me." Tristian cast her a quick glance but didn't stop in his searching. He was randomly methodical, following a pattern that maybe only made sense in the long run. "Like, you're playing this game and, ah, honestly, you seem so . . . _normal_."

Tristian didn't say anything at first. Instead, he took the toy sword and carefully laid it down lengthwise on the counter, pushing it in far enough so that it didn't accidentally roll off. There was a delicacy to the way he handled it, never touching the blade and being cautious in not letting it touch anything else. Yet it seemed utterly in character without being showy, a part of the role he had assimilated so completely that she could imagine him handling knives and power tools in the same casually rigorous fashion.

"You know," he said finally, "from the way you said that I can't tell if you mean that as a good or bad thing." The serious set of his face was leavened by the sly humor in his tone.

"No, no, no," Penny said quickly. "That was supposed to be a compliment, honest. Really. I just . . ." she pulled her hair in a little ponytail before letting it go. "You don't seem like the kind of person who would play this game at all but . . . you're really good at it. I would have thought that anyone playing it would be, you know, this bunch of ultra-nerds . . ."

"Like your friends."

"Yeah," she said, without hesitation. In the space that existed after she spoke the meaning of her own affirmation struck her and she immediately amended, "It's not a bad thing, though, really. It really isn't. That they're nerds. Or that you're not one. Or you don't seem to be one. It . . ." she stopped her headlong rush, made an exasperated face. "I'm back to not making sense again. Dammit."

Tristian laughed, although it sounded more like a cascaded exhalation. "If it helps the categorizing at all, I have an advanced degree in science."

"I'm not really surprised."

He shrugged. "As it turns out, saving the world isn't something you can really punch the clock with . . . I've got to pay the bills somehow. And it has more flexible hours than being an accountant."

"See?" Penny gestured toward him with one hand. "I _got_ that. I'm talking to someone who's pretending to be a Jedi and he made a joke and I didn't need the footnotes from _Living with Physics Today_ to get it. That's what I'm trying to figure out, that's the key." Somewhere in the middle of her last sentence, her face had turned serious. "Because . . . I really like the guys. I do. When I first moved in here, I thought they were a pair of real dorks, nice, well-meaning but just people I'd say hi to when we passed in the hallway." Her fingers traced the grooves between her knuckles, counting out limitations and the gaps between. "But . . . somehow they've become like, my best friends here. I mean, I have friends who aren't them but . . . it's not the same. Sheldon and Leonard would, they'd do anything for me. The most ridiculous thing in the world I could ask them, and they'd figure out some way to make it happen. I used to think it was because I . . . that I was a girl and they rarely saw any females make eye contact with them in their hallowed halls of science. But that's not it." Her voice had dropped to a place low enough to glide under itself. "They're just nice people. And I don't understand them at all."

"And you think I do?" He tapped at the counter with one finger, squinting with one eye as he considered this. "You give me a lot more credit than I'm entitled to."

"I don't mean like _know_ them, like what their favorite colors are and their hopes and dreams . . ." Penny slid off the counter with a little hop, then went down all the way, curling her legs underneath her as she sat down on the floor. Tristian stared at her but didn't seem about to copy the action. "I used to think that I had to make them more like . . . me. You know, normal. Or what I thought was normal. But the more I thought about it, the more it didn't seem right." A laugh shook her without escaping. With her arms wrapped around her legs, she seemed even smaller than she was. "I'd watch them . . . playing video games or arguing over some weird physics concept or roaming around the comic book store and it, they were just having fun. They'd play games like the one you're in right now, I came in one time and they were all wearing capes and pretending to be the . . . Justice League." She bent her head, putting her hand against her forehead and letting her hair spill over her face. "I made the mistake of making a Spider-Man joke. Apparently he was never a member of the Justice League."

"No, he was more the Avengers, I think." Somehow Tristian managed to keep a straight face as he spoke.

"I _know_," Penny shot back. "I got an hour lecture on it from four different angles. I now have a stack of comics in my living room featuring Spider-Man that I have to keep moving around so they think I read it but also maintain in pristine mint condition. I swear Sheldon keeps sneaking in at night to make sure the humidity is right." She tilted her head back, staring at Tristian. "But they're so into this stuff and they try to explain it to me and _I don't get it_. I just _don't_." She pulled her legs up to her chest, squeezed briefly and then let them go so they popped out straight, her heels nearly reaching the cabinets across the floor. "It's like they're all speaking a different language, not even all the physics stuff . . . that stuff goes _way_ over my head, there's no hope there. But the rest . . . the science-fiction and the superheroes and the video games . . . it's this whole world that I don't understand. And I want to." She kicked her heels against the floor, frowning. "Because it's important to them. But I don't have a way in."

Penny fell silent, rubbing her hands on her legs as if cold. Tristian watched her for a few seconds, then said, "I only know that Spider-Man was on the Avengers because someone told me. I have no idea if it's true or not."

Penny smiled. "Don't worry, the secret is safe with me. It's like . . . look, I don't mean to dump this on you but this has been bothering me for a while and . . . you fit in. It just seems that way. Like, you can play along with them and you can talk to me and I don't feel like I have to run out and buy a shiny DVD box set to get every reference. You're like a nerd that doesn't take it all so seriously. That couldn't care less which Flash is the fastest."

"Sometimes," Tristian replied, as a sort of tossed over aside, his face turned away from Penny for just that single second. "It's just the way I've been. I don't know." All of a sudden he was a sundial fallen into shadow. In the bedroom men were shouting in muffled arrays and it was just noise, static poured right into the runout groove.

Penny rubbed her hands together, finding them suddenly fascinating. "So I thought maybe . . . that maybe you understood. That you could tell me why they do it. What they see in it. What _you_ see in it."

"I can only speak for myself," Tristian said with a sudden, taut seriousness.

"That's all I'm asking," Penny said softly, whisking her nails together nervously. "Just a clue. What do they find so fun about all of this?"

"It's hard to say." Tristian picked the sword back up, pointed it toward the window without really touching the glass. Its refraction on the pane was the end of a tunnel you'd never reach, always hanging from the distance. "Maybe . . . in some way it could be because . . . people like that are outcasts in a sense, right?" Penny only nodded, letting him continue. "They're smart, a little quirky, not good at what the rest of the world is good at. So they get excluded. But here . . . this is a world they get, with its own language and convoluted logic. Robots and aliens and the future. So they spend their time understanding it, getting it all memorized so that it becomes _their_ thing." The sword traced out images on the air that were less than a name but more than a statement. "And so they carve out a little niche, here, made of details that nobody in their right mind would sit down to sort out. It becomes a way to separate them from the rest, a kind of code. A way to say _If you were good enough to be us, you'd know this_." He swung the sword lightly, and Penny blinked to look away from its brightness. The smeared force of color seemed sharp enough just on its own. "If that sounds exclusionary, its because it is. It's meant to be. A way to make all the people who ever left them out experience the same feeling."

"Did that happen to you?" Penny arched her back and used the counter to pick herself off the ground. He was holding the sword perpendicular to his body, like a line she wouldn't be able to cross.

"No, not really." With her near he put it back on the counter again, placing himself in front of it. _He really must not want me to break it_. "I was never all that social to begin with. Most of my friends become that way because they're persistent, despite my best efforts. Despite all my warnings otherwise." He smiled but there was a blurred softness to it, all triggers worn down.

"You make it sound mean, when you put it that way." One fingernail picked at the corner of the counter, remembering Sheldon telling her about the golden ratios and how he had spent two days when they first moved in measuring the dimensions so that each piece of furniture could be placed at the most efficacious point. That and Leonard commenting how he'd been forced to sleep on the fire escape until Sheldon was done. "And they're not mean. That's not them."

"I know. It's not meant to be." He frowned and tugged at his sleeve. "It's . . . did you ever want a little section of the world, of your life, that you had complete control over? For most of their lives, other people have been dictating the terms to them, they've been forced to play by other rules. But with superheroes, with _Star Wars_, with all of that, they can surround themselves by known facts, things that will never change. It's something to hold onto. And not everyone can get in. Not unless you know every planet in the Federation. It's a club the world can't get into, and inside those walls of what you might feel is stupid minutiae, they're safe."

"That's my problem. I can't get in." She folded her arms over her chest and glanced somewhere askew. "I'm not even sure I _want_ to sometimes."

"That's the difference though." He took a fork out of the drying rack, turned it end over end and watching how it caught the light. Forged as a distraction, it held no say from his purpose. If he even had one that she could define. _What do Jedi actually do? I don't remember. _"You said, they keep trying to explain things to you. That's because they're trying to teach you the code. They want you in. They're trying to throw you the tools to make the ladder, so you can climb over the walls." He pressed his fingertip against each point, deliberately, one by one, letting it dimple the skin. "It's a club that they never need to let anyone like you into ever and they're trying to find a way." He looked up from the utensil to stare directly at Penny. "That should tell you something."

"But I don't know how to under_stand_." She glanced straight up at the light above them and then away just as quickly, squinting and shaking her head as if from a sudden headache. "That's what I'm trying to ask. I'll never be able to be as . . . nerdy about it as they are. I can't memorize all the different aliens in some movie scene or which elves have which magic sword or which alternate time line is the one where the one girl gets married to her twin or . . . there's got to be something else." There was a stubborn set to her eyes, where you realize that what you need is buried just under the skin and the razor someone left out will get you what you need. But it's going to hurt and when you're done it may not be pretty. So you have to decide, how important is it? What is the damage worth? "Their reasons aren't your reasons. What is it? What makes you enjoy this?"

Tristian drew his mouth into a tight thin line and for a moment only seemed interested in balancing the fork on his palm. It held its position all too briefly before toppling over and off his hand, twisting into a silver plummeting glint. "Let me ask you this." and he could have been speaking to the falling fork. "You said before, earlier, that you sometimes wished you could be someone else." His hand suddenly twitched and he snagged the fork in one quick snap of his wrist, twisting without hesitation and placing it back in the rack. Leaning against the counter, he regarded her with a stare that stopped just short of piercing.

"Yeah, I did." Even though she had said it before, admitting it again, to him, it felt so odd. Like her reasons had to be real and true or he'd be able to see right through them. This entire conversation hinged on her being absolutely honest or she'd never get anywhere. Which was ridiculous, she was talking to a stranger. When this was over he'd tell her to live long or prosper or something and she'd never see him again. It was hard to say how she felt about that, right this second. "Not like some 'secret identity' kind of thing . . . the boys aren't rubbing off on me _that_ much." The caveat seemed necessary, although he didn't react to it. "I wanted to be an actress. I still do. Ever since I was a little girl sitting in front of the TV. I'd watch the shows and the movies and it was just this . . . window that seemed so exciting. I could leave my ordinary house and boring life and step through and . . . and become _any_one. A secret agent, or a model, or an explorer or . . . just something dramatic. Dramatic and exciting. Anyone at all. It seemed so easy, I'd practice every day in front of my mirror, I'd pretend to be the girls on _Melrose Place_ or act out scenes from _Friends _with my stuffed animals and give myself all the good lines. It was so much fun and when I was done I'd stand there with my arms out . . ." she demonstrated the gesture, giving Tristian a sheepish grin. ". . . like I was hearing all the applause in the world. For me."

He was going to comment and it was going to be something nice and Penny couldn't bear to hear that. The feeling was so visceral that she would have made up something to say, if she didn't already have the words. Letting her arms drop, she added, "So I moved out here, to live in a small apartment and work as a waitress. And every so often, I go out to hear someone tell me that I'm not as good at pretending as I think I am." She rubbed the space under her eye with two fingers, the world refusing to distort. "I just get to be me, every day." _And I have to keep making it up as I go along and I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job of it_.

"Is that bad?" The honest curiosity of the question is what hurt the most. It was exactly the right question, and what she least wanted to hear.

"I used to not think so," Penny murmured. She scuffed her boot along the floor to give her an excuse to stare at something else. The sword's light was pressing against her peripheral vision, cutting through any argument she might make. "But along the way I think I started to play someone else and convinced myself that it was me." She was trying to be so quiet and he heard every word and that just made it worse. "I thought it was just a role, that I could slip right out, but it was harder than I thought and sometimes I get so scared that . . ." No. _No_. The room blurred, the sick heavy feeling launching grappling hooks into her stomach, trying to drag it all down. The caustic sensation in the back of her throat that made her want to choke. Carried on the backs of the words you said to yourself when you thought you weren't listening. The moments that insisted the truth mattered the most in the seconds when the least could be done about it. Everyone could be honest when it was easy. It was a different matter when all strength was leaving, or gone.

"I'm not talking about this." What was said was only what needed to be said, and nothing more. Anything else was a waste that couldn't be afforded. Penny put her hands to her face, pressed them hard against her cheeks. She could almost feel the blood vessels pulsing, the frantic little fragile network. Sheldon could tell her every single thing that could go wrong with them. He had, once, at great length, but at the end of it he had stopped and blinked in that childlike way of his, had turned to her as if realizing a new fact for the first time and said in wonder, _With all that could malfunction in this broken system, it's simply amazing that any of us are even here_. And it was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard anyone say. In some way that was her life, constantly breaking down at every conceivable angle, proving every day how haphazardly and how slapdash she had put it all together. Yet she was still there. It kept working. It kept letting her go on, even though it had every reason to be broke. She had never told Sheldon how much that statement, tossed off in a baffled and mystified moment, had meant to her. She never thought he'd understand. But maybe times were changing. "I'm sorry. Not with you."

"Nobody said you had to." His voice had so much patience, she wondered what had happened to him to make him that calm. It seemed too imposed, like when the elevator was dropping and you forced yourself to take deep breaths and after a while it just became natural. "It's not exactly my place to say, really." Penny closed her eyes even as he kept talking. There was the quiet snap of another cabinet opening.

_When the endothelial walls of the veins rupture, it can be hours before the loss is significant enough that you notice the internal seepage. By then, of course, its already too late. _His voice sometimes undulated in her head for hours in dreams made completely of sound. The words were amusingly horrible but the sureness of them was in some ways the most comforting thing in the world. _Unless they're coated in adamantium. And soon as I discover it, that's what I'll do._ To him, science held every answer, even when you didn't know the question. _You can have it too, if you want. If there's enough left over._

_Oh, sweetie. I don't even know what that is. _"This isn't about giving me career advice." _But I don't think you'd give it to someone who's just a waitress_. "I'd need a career first, anyway."

"Well, if it's any consolation I think you're playing a great princess so far," he said. By the puckered sucking sound of a door opening, he was near the refrigerator. The world was so much better when you couldn't see it. The strobed quickness of it was too much for her brain some days. She couldn't keep up. "I would certainly consider putting that on your resume. It's a start."

Sealed away as she was, Penny still felt herself smile. It was a blade, in its own way, and it sliced right through the murk. "Thanks," she said, allowing her eyes to open. "But it's not exactly Method Acting I'm doing here."

He had the door open but instead of being in front of it he was examining the space behind the fridge, running his fingers along the wires going into the wall. The sword had returned to his hand, the shaft of it so still but the tip quivering madly as if recently struck. "We can take on other roles and still be who we are," Tristian said. He rocked back on his heels and looked at her over his shoulder. "If I've learned one thing with all this, it's that."

"Is that why they do this?" Penny said, strolling over to him, curious and at the same time, not. There was a certain mystery here that she just didn't want to penetrate, because the reality of it was probably not as exciting as the cloaked reasons. Maybe he was just being odd, maybe it was something mundane but quirky. She could get used to those things, had made them a part of her life for the past year. The rules of another outcast tribe. "To be someone else? Is that what you're getting at?"

"There's more to the world than getting up, going to work, then stumbling home to eat and go to bed so you can do it all over again the next day." He stood up and turned like a banner wrapping itself around an errant breeze. "I used to believe _this_ . . ." the sword traced lines in the air, a net that took in not just the room but everything outside, the cars and the stupid arguments and the grayness of seeing nothing but a blank wall where the sky should be, "was all there was. I did my best to prove it, because I couldn't conceive of a place outside the room I was in. And then I learned otherwise." He made the game sound like a religious conversion, but there was no fervor in his voice, only fact. Only the dance steps that existed when you finally bothered to look up and break free of the shuffling choreography spelled out. "Most people like the routine of their lives, its comfortable and comforting. They don't want anything else. Or they tell themselves they don't want anything else because they don't realize what else is out there."

Penny laughed, and was surprised to see Tristian looking at her curiously. "That's not the guys, though. It really isn't. They're the most routine people I know. They eat the exact same food on the exact same nights, play the same video games during the same days of the week. Going to the comic book store on a Thursday instead of a Wednesday is like their version of bungee jumping."

"It's not just the routine," he replied mildly. A bit of him seemed ruffled, that patience evaporating just the smallest fraction. "It's the wanting of something other than the ordinary. Most of us will never get to do anything exciting, either because we never get the chance or because exciting things are frightening and dangerous." He paused a beat, let it sink in before saying, "Would you like to go into space?"

Penny didn't even have to think about that one. "Not at all."

"Oh, I'm told it's not so bad," he said, absently tracing the outline of his foot with the sword, like he was playing a game with himself. She was reminded of _Operation_ but wasn't quite sure why. He looked at her as if gauging her reaction and whatever he saw made him smile with a brief snort. "But that's what most people would say. Even people who like the idea of space don't actually want to go there. I can't blame them, I guess. The rules are all different."

"But they're not pretending to be astronauts . . . they don't sit around and pretend they work for NASA." It was hard to follow his train of argument, it was like he kept switching between the theoretical and sights he had seen firsthand, the game and the world the game was based on. But he was just another player, even if he wasn't one that talked in higher level mathematics. "We're in the middle of a big _Star Wars_ game. There's no such thing as aliens or Jedi or droids or any of that stuff. But they act like its real. Even you do. I can't wrap my head around it. It just seems so silly."

"It is," Tristian admitted, even if the bend of his stance didn't quite indicate he believed that fully. "But, let me ask you this . . . why do people act? Why do we watch actors? Why would you do it?"

"To . . ." The answer was right there but she was unable to give voice to it, not wanting to see how obvious it was. Her lips curled, twisted, trying to keep the words in. But it wouldn't be held in for too long. "To be someone else, for a little bit. I told you, already-"

"Yes, but why?" Suddenly he didn't seem like a man with an overgrown toy anymore.

"Because it's fun." It came out of her so quickly that she felt the tearing. "Because its a chance to try out being someone you might not have normally been." He had more questions but she was talking like he had already asked them. Time was regularly linear, but it could loop around. We react without cause and often cause without reaction. She wasn't sure what this was, beyond honesty. "Because for a little while, it's not your life."

"They're never going to be bounty hunters or aliens or space traders or androids, any more than I'm going to be some kind of space hero." He pivoted away on the last sentiment, switching the sword from one hand to another and trending back deeper into the open kitchen. "Real life is much messier than that, if we really went out into space we'd probably find it was . . . nothing like we expected." His shoulders tensed under his jacket, a reminder to brace himself. "The same problems in new forms, and problems you'd never see coming. You wouldn't understand what was going on and nobody is going to wait for you to catch up. It would change so fast and the gap between points of safety would be so wide all you could do is keep running and hope that whoever finds you doesn't want to kill you." Each word rattled out of him, carefully controlled. "I think that's what space would be like." One of those words was wrong but she couldn't tell which one.

Then he turned toward her, so fast that she had no choice but to flinch back. "And since they can't, they come up with the next best thing. That's the part you have to get, I think. The key." A little push and it might yet be true. "They take the stories that they love, the settings, and try to make something new with it. Because they've looked at the world and wanted it to be something other than what it is. A place where the highlight of the day is not getting stuck in traffic so you can get home in time to watch the same TV show you've always watched. Where you can crawl into bed at night and when you think about your day, it's not a carbon copy of the day before." There was an infusion in his voice she couldn't place, underneath his calm cadences a certain . . . pleading? It was too hard to say. "And you can't change the world, not quickly, and even if you could, you don't get to decide _how _it changes. But with a little imagination, you can change a small part of it for a short time. That's what they, _we_ do." He grinned, although the density that seemed to be settling around him never left completely. "To play this game you have to want to let go a little bit. You have to accept that the rules may not be always what you thought they were. Become someone that you never were, but could be for a little while. Pretend that your car is a spaceship and the highway is hyperspace. Pretend that your toy light-up sword is a real one. That you're in charge of grand fleets."

"But . . . but that's nuts," Penny managed to stammer out. "That's not reality. That's just . . . its crazy."

Tristian grimaced and looked down, tapped his heel against the floor. Without meeting her gaze, he said slowly, "On my way here, I passed a newspaper stand. On the front page was the story of how someone got mugged. In broad daylight. The mugger ran off into a thick crowd of people and nobody stopped him. Meanwhile, the person he hurt was lying on the ground, semi-conscious and bleeding from the head, for maybe ten minutes. Ten minutes, on a street full of people passing by." The lights had gone sickly, flooding in and out of rarified color. Or maybe that was just a trick of story.

"Oh my God, that's terrible. But what does that have to do with-"

Tristian held a hand up, then brushed at his upper lip. "That wasn't all. They caught the mugger, someone eventually tripped him or restrained him. Somehow, it doesn't matter. So he got his wallet back but . . . when he checked his pockets, his house keys were gone." His gaze went somewhere dark, a dive down into a cave without viewable depth. "Someone had taken them while he was lying on the ground. Gone into his pockets, but . . . this is what gets me. They had no idea where he lived. His wallet with his ID was gone. They had just taken the keys because they were _there_." He swung the sword loosely, watching its lazy circles as if able to see into whatever portal it cut. But it couldn't cut. It was only a toy. "To me, _that's_ nuts. Here, we're going to stop the aliens and save the princess and it's going to turn out okay. Given a choice, which world would you rather live in? The one you can direct, or the one you can't do anything about?"

"But these games . . . it's just hiding." Even as she said it, she knew it was wrong. It was an argument she had fought with herself several times, while sitting in her living room eating cold pasta and listening to the boys argue across the hall over which starship captain had a better chance of saving the hobbits. It never made sense. But maybe the glasses had been on wrong the whole time. "That's what I don't understand."

"Is it hiding any more than sitting in your apartment with the windows shut and turning up the music a little bit louder so you can't hear what's going on outside? Since I started playing this game, I've found worlds that I never knew existed. I've bargained with living robots, I've raced from one end of a spaceport to another to make sure the bomb didn't go off, I've ridden alongside windows with nothing but endless views and counted stars until I ran out of numbers." _Who makes this stuff up? It sounds insane. _He put his hand against the back of his neck, as if cold. "If it's not the real world, then it'll do. And if we can affect things in _that_ world, then maybe we can transfer a little of that over to here, and make things better. It just takes a willingness to step out. To want something that isn't exactly mundane, and if you're lucky, bring it back with you into this world. If you don't want to understand why someone would do that, then you're never going to understand your friends."

"Oh," was all she found herself capable of saying. "You make it sound so hard. Like, I don't think like that normally, I'm not-"

"Here." With a flick of his wrist he tossed something to her. Automatically she caught it somehow, feeling its smooth slim solidness in her hand immediately. "A little test for you."

"What . . . why?" She stared down at the fork she was now holding. Her reflection was trapped in its contours, shiny and pulled and not like her at all. Yet there she was.

Tristian nodded toward her hand. "Pretend its something. A ray gun. A spaceship. A weird shaped planet. Anything but a fork."

"Why would I do that?" She held it up, as if to make a further point. "It's just a fork. You eat with it. That's all."

Tristian smiled sadly. "Ah, you can do better than that. But not everyone is good from a cold start. Why don't you hang onto it until something comes to you."

"It's not going to come to me," she insisted. "It's just a fork." But she was still holding it.

"We'll see." Tristian turned back to the cabinets, opening another door, maybe one that he had already looked inside.

"What are you looking for?" Penny asked suddenly. Stepping forward, she slipped the fork into her pocket, telling herself that she'd put it back in the drawer later. Sheldon audited it every night to make sure that the utensils got an even rotation and thus uniform wear, so he would notice eventually. "You keep going through these cabinets and-"

"Oh, I wanted to make some coffee," Tristian replied easily. Penny came up next to him, on his left side where the sword was. He immediately switched hands, passing it in front of him but stepping back so that he didn't hit it against anything. _Maybe you are a secret nerd_. "Since we're probably going to be here a while. I mean, I'd call it Endorian Brew or whatnot, but it seemed like a good idea." He frowned, opening another cabinet. "But even though things seem to be alphabetical, I can't find . . ."

"They're alphabetical by main ingredient and then further ranked in terms of usage." Tristian gave her a strange look, which she answered with a grin of her own. "I made the mistake of asking for some sugar one time and Sheldon gave me the whole spiel on his organizing system."

"He seems to have quite a few of those," Tristian commented.

"It's like Dewey Decimal got crossed with the Rain Man." She stopped to consider what she had just said. "I really have to stop hanging around with them."

Tristian kept a straight face. "I'm not one to judge."

Penny laughed and shook her head. "You're quite the diplomat." She went up on her toes to stare past Tristian into the cabinet. Squinting, she muttered, "It should be right . . . ah!" Bending down suddenly, she went into the cabinets under the sink, where the household cleaners were normally kept. "Every so often Sheldon gets it into his head that caffeine is an addictive substance and thus Leonard has to be cured of its hold on him. So he makes sure that none of it is in the apartment." She started rooting around in the back of that particular cabinet, frowning. "Now what did he . . . thing is, Leonard just pretends to go along with it. Its just easier for everyone involved. In the meantime he hides it in . . . there we are!"

Triumphantly she sat back, holding up a large red plastic bottle with a handle on it. On the side of it was a big sticker that said "Biohazard – Property of CDC" along with a large sad face.

Tristian only stared down at her. Penny grinned wider and shook it, rewarded with the sound of grains shifting inside. "He's a terrible germaphobe, the fact that it's in there is killing him but he's too scared to actually open it to see what's in it."

"That's funny." Tristian considered this as Penny hopped back to her feet, placing the bottle on the counter. "But why not just hide the coffee in your apartment? You seem to be here often enough."

Penny gave him a scathing look. "Trust me, these two get up so early that they've got experiments finished before my alarm even goes off. The last thing I want is Leonard rummaging through my apartment at some godawful hour. Plus, its funnier this way." She turned to open a drawer. "Now I thought he left the scoop in plain sight and just said it was for-"

Penny stopped, shaking her head a little. Blinking, she stared directly at Tristian suddenly. _That was odd_.

She must have spoken outloud because Tristian said with some urgency, "What is it?"

"You . . ." the word seemed utterly foreign but that wasn't right at all. "You're _flickering_. But why would that . . . " No other words wanted to come, her hands were tingling and that shouldn't have been happening but Tristian was merely standing there. "You should probably stop that, it's . . . weird." There was a sparkline running up the base of her brain and that made even less sense but there it was, the lit wire traveling traced trails and when it reached the base

...............................................................................................when it reached the base

...............................................................................................when it reached the

...................................................................................suddenly Tristian wasn't where he used to be anymore

...............................................................................................but he hadn't _moved_ and oh

..................................................................................."You guys are all so _weird_ sometimes-"

...............................................................................................then the spark hit the main switch and

.....................................................................................................................it all went

.....................................................................................................................black

...............................................................................................and someone hit her in the face

...............................................................................................and a single shout sounded

.....................................................................................................................but

.....................................................................................................................but

.....................................................................................................................but mmaybbe nnot inn t h a t

.......................................................................................................................................................................o..............................e

..........................................................................................................................................................................................d.....................r

.................................................................................................................................................................................r

* * * * *

"Sheldon, what are you talking about?" How Leonard was the first one to speak he'd never be able to figure out. Perhaps Brown had asked the question already and it was merely a second ahead of him, dancing away into capering folds of time and prepared to loop around at any second, completely out of sequence. But that was crazy. It ignored all the latest science regarding tachyon emissions and the nature of curved space as it related to the perceptions of time. It was as much nonsense as sitting in a chair and saying with a straight face, "Warp factor six."

"I think you know the answer to that, Grand Moff," Sheldon said, and Brown merely nodded.

"That's why I asked," came the man's simple reply and right then Leonard felt an odd chill go right down his spine. _Warp factor six, engaged._ It was only nonsense when it wasn't happening right in front of you. "So why don't you elaborate, faithful droid?"

"It's very simple." Sheldon put one hand out, spread the fingers wide as if testing the joints. Or perhaps gauging the weight of his own shadow. "All along we've been following standard science-fiction plot structure. The initial discovery, the first battle, the pieces slowly coming together. We've almost got the whole story now, all we need is the last crucial piece that will cause you to win the day." He paused for a slow blink. "At which point you wipe our memories and go on your merry and mysterious ways, only leaving a single artifact behind to make us wonder if it had all been a dream."

"Sheldon, how many times do we have to . . . _this is not a TV_-"

"Sh," Brown said, with a exhalation that could blow out a birthday candle lit by a star. "Let him finish."

The clipped angularity of the room was the perfect setting for his voice. "But right before you reach your final revelation that will solve the whole affair and bring it to a heartwarming conclusion . . . there's going to be one last attack. One final setback that will make people think that the day is lost and the heroes will not be able to recover." He walked over to his bed and stopped just short, as if not recognizing it anymore. "Then you invoke the last second save and it's over. It's all very textbook." He glanced at his watch and tapped at the glass. "We should only have a few minutes by my calculations."

"That's insane," Leonard exclaimed, wondering if he had reasons for it to not be true or if that was simply just wishful thinking. "They've got free run of the building and they can't get in, why would they bother wasting their energy going after us?"

Sheldon gave him one of those looks that somehow found that irritating spot between smug and pitying. "Leonard, Leonard, Leonard, have you been paying attention at all?"

"I was paying very close attention when they blew up our lamp," he muttered in response.

"Nobody in this building is any threat to them at all." The way the light glinted on his eyes gave them a metallic sheen that was a little unsettling. Could one be infected by a genre? Leonard was starting to wonder. "Except for us." Brown coughed but didn't add any comments. "They know exactly where we are and they know they can't get directly at us. And while we're in a sense trapped, we have two factors in our favor that must frighten them utterly. One, we are human beings, the most resourceful race in all the galaxy, capable of taking the smallest pieces of a puzzle and putting together another picture entirely. A kitten becomes a tank, a tank becomes a bomb, a bomb becomes a kitten again." The cadence of his voice was such that the sequence nearly made sense. "And two, more importantly, you have me."

"Great," Leonard said. "I'll go rustle up the victory noise-makers now and beat the rush."

"They know we're here," Sheldon said, his voice standing on the wrong side of the mountain. Standing on the side where the avalanche was about to come down. "And they know we can stop them. And they don't know what we're doing." His gaze went to Brown, propped against the door like it might all pivot around him one day. "I imagine you have a plan already."

Brown's smile was as thin as the line between a solid and a gas at low pressures. "I've had several. But someone keeps getting in my way and changing the game."

"Then they're going to try and stop you." He examined the underside of his wrist in a fussy, quiet manner. "It's probably safe to say they're going to try very hard."

"Maybe I'm expecting that," Brown replied in that deadly calm way it is. Like he knew the aliens were listening and this was something they needed to hear. How much was part of the plan and how much was he making up as he went along? That wasn't a question that Leonard necessarily wanted an answer to. "Maybe I'm choosing the gambit of letting them show their hand first." His skin briefly took on the pallor of a different hue, a photograph run through the wrong lens. Leonard blinked and looked away, coughing slightly. "Which is why we need to get everyone on the same-"

He stopped abruptly, squinting and then staring at Leonard. "You all right, there?"

"Yeah, its just-" Nausea hit the back of his throat like fireworks and that had to be the stress of the day. How he felt just before every conference presentation, when he was convinced that all the eyes in the room were out to prove him wrong and if he didn't pass they would take his doctorate away, take it and burn it and give him a piece of ratty cardboard that just said _Fraud_ on it. He never told anyway about this dream, not even himself. "I'm just-" The recurring notion that he would wake up and find himself living in the Shire, in a world where science didn't matter, but he'd still be _him,_ a physicist living in a place where nobody gave a damn about physics. Where everyone kept saying to him skiddy be doo bop. _What? _Bop a do bop skiddley dee. _What? Am I talking? Is that my voice?_

"Hold on, wait, nobody do any-"

Beeb a loo da da hey da

The world refracted into abstract shapes, the sky turning into a flock of birds consisting of perfect fluttering triangles.

"Oh Christ, get down, both of you _get-_"

Dop a boo bop, beedle dee dee

A rocket went right up his spine and the view collapsed.

"Close your eyes, don't look, it's the . . ."

Doop de doop fiddle fie fo, skeebee deebee do

". . . light, nobody look at the-"

A flash flared into a bang and

dum dee boo bop cha

the bang flared into a flow and

chee cha chee tee ta ha cha ha

and the flow went right down

cha ha chuh ha ha ha haha

into the dark and endless drain

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-


	9. Chapter 9

Should be the last of the funny layouts, thank God (if anyone is really wondering what's happening down there, it's supposed to signify Penny flickering in and out of consciousness, only hearing things are scattered fragments that eventually converge into coherent dialogue. How well that comes off depends on your patience for this kind of thing) . . . this also starts a very long sequence where Tristian basically has a side adventure while the rest of the crew get into a nice discussion. Honestly, this all has something to do with the plot. I swear.

* * * * *

When Penny was a kid, her best friend lived far away. Which, when you're a kid, means "not in my house." Even the next farm over was miles away and although they'd talk on the phone for hours, it wasn't the same as having someone to grab onto when the joke made you laugh so hard that you almost fell over. It was the giggles that always gave her away, when she'd take the cordless phone under her covers late at night and try to stay awake until the battery went dead. Like a little private hideaway, where the dark could help you pretend your best friend was in the same room. Just unseen, with a weight behind the voice.

_.........."Listen"......................................................................."you have to"_

But sometimes Cassidy would come over and Penny would sit on the fence at the edge of their farm, staring down the road, squinting so hard that the muscles of her eyes would start to ache. Sitting there waiting for the horizon to disgorge her friend. Just a tiny dot, barely even moving. Hovering in the distance, hesitant and far.

"_just stay"_............................................................................."_where"_........................................................................."_me"_

And she'd never know for sure, so would start waving, waving like a madwoman. _Can you see me? I'm right here._ Waving until her shoulder hurt, until she thought that she might take flight from flapping her arm, waving at this tiny flickering dot that might be her friend, willing it to come closer.

....................................................................................."_to"................."listen"_................................................................."_have to_"

It wouldn't now. She kept waving her arm so hard and the dot kept hanging back. _Cassidy, can you see me? Why won't you come closer?_ It was getting dark now, or maybe it had always been dark. Even the stars hadn't come out, hiding shyly behind opaque cloud covers. The painted radiance on the sky of nearby cities, missing. But she shimmered, candles as distant flares. Her best far friend. _You know I can't leave._

.........."_listen_"........................................................................"_what I'm_"........................................................................................._"just stay"_

One time she had decided to try and scare her, play a little joke. _If I go, I won't want to come back. _There was a bundle of hay on the outskirts of the farm, put there for the horses so that he had something to feed them out in the fields. _Then I may not see you ever again. So you have to come nearer. Please._ Penny had crawled under it, wincing as the dry strands scratched and tickled at her skin, hollowing herself out a little nook to sequester herself, curled on her elbows and knees, watching the road.

...................................................................................."_its important that you"....................."listen and_"........................................"_stay right_"

Crouched in the sweet dry scent of old grass and doing her best not to laugh and give herself away. The hay like a jungle, a weight without mass surrounding and covering her. The secret sudden place. _Cassidy, if you don't come I'm going to have to leave. _Waiting for the dot to come closer, increments by inches and following rigid inertia. Wanting to remain at rest forever, with the ground under her and the hay-weight over her and her far friend nearer than far and still not here. _And if I leave I'm not going to be able to_

........................."_right here"........."just listen you"................................................................."have to"..........................................."Penny"_

..........In a way, she had never felt so safe. Staying just like that, at rest.

"_Penny"............"don't just"........"listen you".........."have to"_

..........On the ground of the floor

........................"_listen to me just".........."Penny you have"_

..........of the floor of the dark of the dot

_...................................."to listen to me" "stay just" "stay" "just"_

..........of the day of the floor of the hard floor the hard linoleum

"_just listen and stay"....."you have to"....."Penny just"_

..........Wait. _Wait._

_"stay right here and" "Penny listen"_

.........._Cassidy, dammit, why didn't you tell me?_

"_Penny, listen, you have to" "stay right" "he_re and_"_

.........._I'm on someone else's floor again._

"don't move." The voice was the moon come down, still and tidal. "You're okay, but you need to stay down for a few minutes." Right in her ear, how the crickets would hum in invisible inches. "The bounty hunters are sweeping the area and we're staying out of sight." He was a weight over her that was trying not to be a weight. There was a taste in her mouth of salt and blood and old beer. "Just stay where you are. It's not you they're after." The pressure from above and the pressure of below. Her face against the floor and his breathing on the back of her neck, a steady quiet surge of ocean air. "To them, you're just a means to an end. I'm sorry." He sounded genuinely sad over it. _Cassidy, I think its the first time a guy ever apologized to me and meant it. You need to be here for this._ But the dot never came closer. Maybe it was because the world was constantly pulling away.

"Don't worry." Or maybe it was her, tracked on a receding course. "We've got this." Under the dark and the weight and the promise. "We won't let anything happen to you." _Wait, but I never had the chance to explain. I never had a-_

The constant drone shimmered, changed pitch just as the weight suddenly lifted away, a tent yanked upwards by a tornado. The hay torn away. _Here I am, Cassidy. Can you see me? _Her tank top was exactly why she was cold. _I never went anywhere, I've been here the whole time. I wasn't hiding, I was waving. Can you see me? Can you see-_

The dot flickered, maybe in farewell, and was gone. Or maybe Penny opened her eyes. The result, regardless, was the same.

* * * * *

He had left them behind and it didn't matter. The first pulse had taken out the light switch and that was enough for one room. It didn't matter. Brown was already running, doing his best to stay one step ahead of the surge, counting out the steps in his head and calculating how much time he had and realizing that it wouldn't matter. Already it was going off as cancerous flashbulbs in his brain. In seconds, maybe. The device clutched in his hand already on the proper setting but it wouldn't matter if he wasn't in the right place to set it off, all of them would be

"Tristian! They've changed the freq-"

Muscle control went first and that was his only warning as the room went funnel-shaped, the edges melting into a thickened center as an airstrike got called in to obliterate his view. His legs went or maybe the floor leapt up to hug him, it was hard to stay as his brain suddenly found it impossible to process anything resembling coherency. His last conscious thought was _silly sips sicken the sodden sad sisters_ before words lost all meaning as well. Flowers of ineffable brightness clenched in barren meadows, foaming as solid balls that kept sitting on the railways of his neurons, elbowing each other out of the way and jockeying for a center that didn't exist, extending and stretching up toward distant vaults, pressing down with mass that shouted the floor wasn't enough, that there had to be a place lower. Every cannon misfired, facing the wrong direction, holes appearing in simple air, in fascist transparencies, in the dodging of digging of the invasion, the troops were landing on the shores, the shores were made of constant grains with grit and the grit was in the works and the gears and the gears were jamming not like rock stars but the stoppage was speeding and falling and speeding and

_.....no_

_.....it doe_

_ ...........s_

_...........__n_

_...........__'_

_...........__t_

_.............__matter_

........................as highways rerouted, all the brake lights flaring up at once in the road that was shaped _just like a bow-tie_ decided on a different form entirely and became a snarl of outreached crystal, a solar prominence, the lightness of running up a distant hill in the finest throes of summer, in the breath and the air and the sweetness of it, the new path near and all obstacles avoided. The flashbulbs tried to blind him again, in the dark of the back of the dome, but part of roaming was discovering ways to adapt and that's what he was doing. _You. You man. _The blankets that threatened to smother, poked with holes that the stars could be seen through. _You're a man of._ And that was fine. As long as he could see a place to go, as long as the promise of a destination lingered, he would always find a way. _You're a man of constant_

His finger spasmed and the dim became dark, with barely a whimper.

Brown coughed and tasted dust on his tongue. _A man of constant what?_ One of his arms was uncontrollably twitching, all the tendons becoming ropes wrapped around an escaping bird. Oddly, it didn't hurt. Yet.

He banged it against the floor. _I was going to say surprises. _A few more synapses interlocked with a non-audible _click_ and just like that it stopped.

_Yeah, sure you were_. He coughed again, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth but found it didn't really get rid of the taste. Dust and plastic and the vegetables his mother used to feed him, the ones that she'd always overcook because she thought his father liked them better that way. Rubbery and rough. _Son, _his father once confessed to him, in one of their few unguarded moments_, I can't stand them either, but I'm afraid she don't know how to cook them any other way. And I don't know how to make it stop_.

"Arguh," he said, quite formally. He spit the rest of the nonsense out, a little comforted to find himself on the floor and not dangling out a window. A headache was gradually forming somewhere right behind his forehead, despite the emergency regeneration. Some things it wouldn't fix, oddly. Nobody had any real explanation for it. Little spasms were still erupting in various muscles but he could feel his body hunting down those last twitches and exterminating them.

The room was completely dark, all the lights having been extinguished. The device was still in his hand, clutched so tightly that the corners of it were beginning to mark their own territory in his palm. He had to almost pry his fingers free from around it, so locked were they into the cause. Whatever, it had worked. It was all off. _Stupid, stupid,_ he berated himself. _You're getting distracted, you should have seen that. You let them press an advantage._

Enough, then. He got to his knees, resisting the urge to spit out a meal that he had never devoured. Light induced seizures, cycling through frequencies that forced the brain to misfire. They were learning, they didn't know this much about people when they had come here. Experimenting. That bothered him more than he wanted to admit. _And you didn't see it coming. _Everyone else was probably safe, he had gotten the lights out in the bedroom before anything permanent had happened. His own brain would have treated the attack as an ongoing lesion and adapted accordingly, explaining why he wasn't currently attempting to bite off his own tongue.

_All right. _He shook off the last splinters of the refracted fog that had been crowding his brain, tucking the device back into an inner jacket pocket. _Let's do this properly then and actually go on the offensive. _He cleared his throat, throwing off the image of a wall made of corrugated blocks, letting normal reality assert itself. As normal as his life got. _Their_ lives, really.

"Okay, Tristian," he said as he got to his feet, "we're done with the games. What I need you to do is . . ."

His view cleared the counter and he could see a body shifting on the floor of the kitchen. As his eyes adjusted to both the gloom and seeing the world without chaff clouding his view, he saw it was a body with blond hair and more curves than he remembered Tristian having.

At the sound of his voice she picked her head up abruptly, blinking against the brightness of the dark. There was a slight quirk of disappointment to the edge of her lips upon seeing it was only him, a trait that came through even in the shadows.

"It was the bounty hunters," Penny said, somewhat dully. "Isn't that what you said . . ." she twisted so that she was lying on her side, addressing a person who in her mind could only be near.

Except he wasn't. "Oh."

His legs still a little wobbly, Brown staggered to the counter and took hold of it, doing his best to make the motion seem perfectly natural.

"He was right here," Penny was saying, almost out of his view. "Just a second ago, he was telling me . . ."

Brown said nothing, merely looked to the wide open door that led out of the apartment, and the ever-present hum of a weapon that had been taken out of the silo. "Of course you're already on it," he muttered, shaking his head and instantly regretting the motion. "Why discuss any kind of plan? You'll just handle it by yourself."

Penny's head popped up over the side as she stood up. Her gaze was cautious and guarded, searching for any kind of face that wasn't his. "What's going on? Why the hell are all the lights out?"

"Just an extra layer of realism," Brown said cheerfully. "An attempt to capture the gritty authenticity that a situation like this demands." He rapped the top of the counter. "Just wait until you see how we pull off space docking procedures. You'll feel like you're really there."

Penny just stared at him warily. "I was thinking that this is a strange game," she said slowly, "but I'm starting to wonder if it's just you."

_Strange? _Brown only smiled charmingly, but the open door loomed wide in his peripheral vision. _Honey, you don't know the half of it._

* * * * *

There were maps opening in his head like endless unfolding fractals, guides triggered to every possible solution, the dance steps for all the rhythms that could be conceived. The first time the lights had flickered in their split-second strobe cadence, a part of him had known exactly what it was and was already compensating for him, hissing out a harsh sibilant scream that could only translate into kinetic movement.

Glimmers had hammered at the sideways doors to his vision, attempting to find a way in, sneaking through cellars and partially ajar screen doors, tapping at windows like lost children, all the while carrying stamps shaped as knives and the ability to rewrite all the pathways, to send every impulse crawling off the wrong cliffs. It had all been swept away now, grooves in the sand now smeared over with the intention of finding new forms of handwriting. That was his brain now. A constant stable source of motion. The ignition that never ceased.

Possibilities intersected in a flow chart as big as the world, every action he took sealing off one branch but opening up a thousand others. The stairs barely creaked as he crept down, the curvature of their descent acting like an arrow pointing in the direction he needed to go in. The building was silent and that was what had sent him out of the apartment. The realization that had come to him in the seconds after the lights had gone out and instances reasserted themselves not as a series of photographs seen through glass slides but a continuously flowing sequence of events, fraught with consequences. As his mode shifted from protecting the people nearest him to considering the larger implications of what had just occurred.

_If they can do this to us . . ._

A realization that had sent him rocketing from the room.

. . . _they can do it to the entire building._

The lights were steady as Tristian made his way down to the next floor, placing each step carefully before finally settling down, almost walking on the balls of his feet. But they held no trace of the insidious flicker that had infested them before, he could stare at them without feeling the klaxons in his head going off. He had switched off the sword once he had left the apartment, not wanting to scare any of the neighbors away, especially those who might not be as apt to buy the _Star Wars_ explanation as readily as the people upstairs did. Plus it gave him away too easily, the red glow a shouted beacon that could be felt or even sensed from a distance. They were already afraid of him or they wouldn't have acted like they just had. No reason to spook them entirely. There was still a chance of getting out of this without bloodshed.

But it was too damn quiet. Glass-like and frozen, each apartment door sealed shut but with no hints or traces of other lives lurking behind them. The cool rasp of a television show, the patterned thumping of running children, the soft sighs of closeted arguments or the louder peals of laughter creasing out beyond hearing, into places he wasn't sure he could go yet. But he was learning. _I want you to come back, because it's you. _Her voice was the legend in the map, marking out the miles. One inch was all it took. _Not with a story, or an adventure or a gift, but just you, being back. The rest will just be. _In a way her absence was the spaces between the notches in his spine. He still held together but without the cushion the press of gravity was that much worse. But until the you had the buffer you just went on thinking that the sensation was all you would ever feel. He knew different now and it was wonderful. But there were consequences. Ones that he couldn't think about now.

"Hello." He didn't speak loudly, but conversationally. Talking to empty corridors and blank faced doors, the only difference being the numbers, lives stacked next to lives. The quieted sword was still in his hand, his finger never leaving the switch. But they wouldn't dare attack him directly. "Is anyone there?" Each door held a story and he didn't have time for stories, only resolutions.

Nothing. "Wouldn't anyone like to see what the strange man wandering around your building is up to?" A distant burble erupted from somewhere deep below, but it was merely the opening movement of a symphony lacking any accompaniment. The floor had gone hermetic, worse than a museum. At least an exhibit held some sense that it once proposed a purpose. Here, it was just stoppage, the discarded strings of a striking show littering the ground. "Anyone?"

His ears caught a fragment of a tiny noise and almost immediately his body responded, snapping toward the source of it like magnetic radar. It took everything he had not to ignite the sword. _No. No, wait. We play this my way for once._

It was . . . a whirring? That didn't make any sense, unless someone had left on an oscillating fan. Still, he crept closer to the wall, running his fingers along the old paint and reading the Braille underneath of the building settling. Regular and running, with his ear near to the wall he could hear it better. Not a voice, though. The Nirtorian hive didn't have proper voices, however they spoke they stole. Maybe they had a language borne of the charged whirlings of electrons, poetry spoken in the loss of spin and shifting states. He had no way to communicate with them but they still had to understand. This course was only going to end in their elimination. That had to be clear and he wasn't sure he had the words.

"Come on," he said, doing his best to trace the source. He was in between apartments, doors on either side of him beckoning like the prizes to a demented game show. "Leave the rest of them out of it. You don't have to do this." He was getting closer, the whirring never altering its pitch but seeming to respond all the same. He wasn't even looking to where he was tracking, letting instinct become the trail.

It ended at a door, much like he had thought it had. The numbers of it stared blankly back at him. Perhaps they meant something, as integers, as variables. The boys upstairs probably could have gone on for hours about it. But in the end it was just a door and only distinguished from the other doors was a set of numbers. It was really that simple.

Tristian placed one hand flat against the door. The wood was cool to the touch but that meant nothing other than the temperature of the floor was slightly cool. The noise continued beyond, as constant gears. On some level it was a noise he could relate to. Some nights it was the last thing he heard before he finally let himself fall asleep.

He pushed on the door lightly. It responded to his pressure just a tad and he saw that it was ajar. _Of course. Might as well avoid the guesswork and get this over with_. He closed his eyes briefly and said, "I suppose there's no chance that we're all going to decide to be reasonable about this, is there?"

A few seconds without answer were all he needed. "Thought so," he sighed, opening his eyes. Even with a forced calm, his heart was still quickening. The sword was an extension but of what he wouldn't dare say. A tiny push was all he needed to get in. It shouldn't have been necessary. "I suppose we're going to have to see this through."

Within the same moment, he shoved aside the door and went in.

* * * * *

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Why, Deckard Jones, that's entirely the wrong response. What you're _supposed_ to say is . . . _oh my gosh_, _ADS5S5, you were right again. I can't believe I ever doubted you._"

"Sheldon . . ."

"Just like that time in the Tantros Spiral when you insisted that despite all my readouts telling us otherwise, we were perfectly concealed in the interport ductwork. But, no, it was simply dust getting into my circuits and we rely more on your human intuition."

"I'm serious, Sheldon-"

"And I guess you were right, they didn't find us in there. But that was because they had cleared out in order to start the monthly decontamination procedures. We got out only because I was able to tap into their schematics and even so, there is a scratch from the sulfuric acid that refuses to come out no matter how many times I get it newly polished-"

"_Sheldon-_"

"Don't take that tone with me. And what's with the new name? Are we undercover now? There's very little point to that if they already know who you are."

"We're not playing the game right now! That was only so Penny didn't think there really were aliens in the building. So you can stop pretending to be a snotty android and go back to being just a regular snotty human being."

"Well. I suppose we can call a break. Although the nice thing about our current discussion is how no matter what guises we don, it does not change ultimate fact about me being right."

"Jesus. Is this the kind of thing you really want to be right about? Seriously? I swear, you're the only person I know who would be smug about predicting an asteroid hitting the Earth. It'd be like Krypton exploding and instead of launching the baby in a rocket, you'd be standing there going, _I told you so._"

"Oh, please, bragging is lost on people who don't understand the concept to begin with. Besides, shooting the rocket into space would have been pointless . . . the proper thing to do would have been to fire a larger version of the rocket at the planet, thus boring a hole to the center and venting the internal pressures that were tearing it apart. Jor-El really went about it all the wrong way."

"Yeah, for a fictional character, he was fairly clueless."

"I mean, I found the flaw in his calculations in seconds and this man was supposed to be one of Krypton's geniuses. _I beg to differ_, if you look at the equations he's written on the Scarlet Jungle Blackboard Beast in his laboratory in _Superman _119, they're just absolute gibberish. Clearly, he had no idea what he was doing and was just dazzling the scientific community with fancy words and concepts. They're lucky he ever figured out the planet was going to explode before the fissures opened up in the surface."

"You know, I really can't tell if you know this stuff isn't real and just like to pretend that it is, or that you really think that every fictional scenario you ever read is true somewhere. And I don't think I want an answer to that."

"I wrote to DC Comics about a much more accurate proposal on my part, where Jor-El actually had a clue and stopped the planet from exploding. Thus his child grew up and was able to make a more lasting contribution to society than plowing fields and plucking people out of the air who fell out of buildings."

"But that's what people want to read."

"Sadly, yes. Nobody at DC really was interested in my pulse pounding concept of Kal-El, Ace Mathematician. Although my first draft where he single-handedly proves all rational semi-stable elliptic curves are modular literally sent integral chills right down my spine."

"That's part of the proof for Fermat's Last Theorem."

"I know. But apparently the idea that people like stories based on tales ripped from today's headlines just isn't true at all. I mean, when was the last time you read in the newspapers about someone punching an intelligent comet? It's just absurd."

"And yet, here we are, sitting in our dark apartment while a bunch of aliens we've never met just tried to give us epilepsy. I think I'd rather get mugged."

"We could always leave the room, you know."

"Oh, no, I think we're okay right here. The novelty of this is kind of wearing off."

"That really wasn't a suggestion, Leonard. If we're not playing right now then this isn't the auxiliary loading dock we're hiding in, but my room. And you're not really authorized to be in here. I made an exception due to the extenuating circumstances and the fact that since we became deputized, the Commander actually outranks us . . . but he's not here now and thus that makes me the ranking deputy officer. So . . . get out."

"Wait, why are you the ranking officer? We were both enlisted at the same time!"

"At the same time, _sir._ Because the corps prefers to promote based on merit and not vague hopes and dreams. And they recognize natural leadership ability. Which you can contemplate in your own room."

"Nobody promoted you, this . . . gah, why am I _arguing_ over this with you? Sheldon, there's no corps, we are not part of anything. Whatever the hell these people are doing, its nothing we can handle and they don't want our help."

"Don't want our help, sir."

"_Stop that!_"

"It seems to me that what rankles you the most about this whole situation is that you expected some kind of crazy adventure to somehow evolve out of this. That we would engage in our usual madcap and zany antics with a wildly escalating series of misunderstandings that would eventually culminate into a neat and pat resolution. But we are not following a sitcom plot here, Leonard, this isn't a very special episode of _Friends. _This is real life. And real life can get messy."

"You're not actually going to lecture me about real life, are you? Because I will really leave the room. And lock you in here."

"Not until I'm finished. You keep expecting _Star Trek_, where the heroes grab the glory and the aliens always speak English and everyone has their part to play."

"But instead we're in _Starship Troopers_."

"No. That's not it at all. You miss the point entirely. You're used to being the starring role in your own life, but there are times when you are merely part of the supporting cast. You wanted to be Captain Kirk in this scenario, didn't you?"

"I . . . yeah. Of course. And you'd be Spock. We've talked about this."

"But, ah, here, we're not. Neither of us are what we hope to be. And it's not an easy feeling to get used to."

"I don't like it when you make sense. It's like a madman suddenly becoming lucid."

"Or maybe you're just finally starting to listen to me."

"It's . . . okay, I thought it would be like you said, like all those television shows we watched. Where the people who aren't involved get caught up in the action and wind up being an integral part of the day being saved. Or that the spotlight would be on them and they'd become the heroes. I like to think that, okay? That I'm secretly some kind of hero and that in the right situation, I would rise to the occasion. What's wrong with thinking that?"

"Luke Skywalker Syndrome."

"They have a _name_ for it?"

"Oh, you could call it any number of names but it all boils down to the same basic criteria. A boy from an ordinary life secretly believes that he is destined for greater things and that when he reaches the proper age those will be revealed to him, embroiling him in a series of situations that will eventually lead him into the exciting life that he always felt he should be leading. But it's never going to happen because unless you're a genius in theoretical physics, you are probably never going to amount to anything important. But nobody ever wants to believe that about themselves, so they wind up putting together the pieces of their lives in such a way as that the only way it can fit together is that they are secretly the son of galactic royalty or the last of a line of space knights hidden in their humdrum lives as bookkeepers."

"I don't believe that about myself."

"Well, you're only in Stage I, which is generally marked by mild delusions and otherwise harmless fantasies that only come to bear during times of great stress or under intoxication. The key phrase of a Stage I Luke Skywalker is _what if?_ They are constantly trying to contemplate the shape of lives that they will never lead."

"I can't believe there's stages to this."

"Oh yes, _Slan Monthly_ devoted an entire issue to it last year. I was a contributing editor, I can't believe I never told you. Anyway, it progresses to four stages in total, where Stage II Skywalkers are distinguished by a need to act our their fantasies in private, or online, hence the number of people in _World of Warcraft_ who take their names from characters in _Firefly._"

"I think that was more in the hopes that they'd impress Summer Glau. Come on, you've been there."

"More accurately, I've watched you go there. And fail. But Stage II Skywalkers can often hide their fantasies by engaging in role playing games and pretending it's all part of the scenario. This way they can have the best of both worlds. It's all still fairly harmless, if silly, but by the time you reach Stage III it's started to bleed into their everyday life, where they begin to see everything in terms of the filter of the life they've been denied. They begin to rank their friends in terms of which ones would be most likely to attempt to steal the One Ring from the, or contemplate leaping to the top of the corporate ladder through the time tested Klingon method of assassinating those above them."

"I think you and the contributing editors were starting to reach there a little bit."

"Am I? Do you remember Sheer-CON IV and Jimmy Dufsman?"

"Jimmy . . . oh! Duffy the Vampire Slayer. Yeah, I remember him. He kept wandering around the convention floor saying that the hot dogs were so bad that they must have crawled through a crack in Hell. Come to think of it, Howard got sick off those."

"That wasn't the only thing Duffsman did."

"I warned him not to eat them but it was the only kosher food there, I guess. What else did he . . . _right_, the staking. He was walking around with those impaled hot dogs for hours. Raj said he looked like a Boy Scout searching for a campfire. Until the squad of people dressed like Predators took them away because they were hungry. Which was . . . wait, so you're saying . . ."

"Classic Stage III, Leonard. Utterly classic. They crave the adventure of their favorite shows or comics and decide that if they mimic it as close as costumes and local ordinances will allow, that adventure will come on its own. But it's not true. And that's not an easy thing to learn."

"So what's Stage IV, dare I ask?"

"Oh, complete and total break with reality. Instead of emulating your favorite characters, you become them and start to enact their stories. Its a manifestation of a wanting that's so acute that the separation between reality and fiction isn't good enough anymore. You're in the movie of your life but you never bothered to check to see that the crew never showed up to film."

"But you go on with the script anyway."

"Precisely. We've never actually noted any in the wild, although reports have been filed. Nothing was ever confirmed, however. Still, we have several action plans in place in case the circumstance ever arises."

"The best plan would involve tranquilizer darts and a giant sack weighted with rocks, if you ask me."

"That is one, as a matter of fact. Most of the other plans involve rigging up fake distress signals from the Justice League or applicable heroic group that they need to go undercover in a local fast food establishment. Once there we either let them be in the hopes of getting their employee discount or if we think we can save them, we deprogram them to return them into society."

"You take this all very seriously, don't you?"

"People dressing up like Batman is no laughing matter, Leonard. It distracts the real one from his vital work. We're lucky that no one has ever progressed that far."

"But . . . do you think I could?"

* * * * *

It was dark inside but Tristian could tell the room was cream colored, painted the bland style of someone who had wanted the walls to be different than what it had been but didn't feel like putting the imagination into personalizing the apartment. A simple couch and television were set up in one corner, the television screen showing nothing but a dead signal. Its pale light bled a shimmering square onto the dull carpet. A quiet insistent hiss from the blank channel underscored the scene. Most of the other corners were taken up by boxes with various knickknacks stacked haphazardly inside them, indicating someone either in the process of leaving or not quite ready to feel like they lived there. He could see no one, though.

To his right he could see a kitchen, with dishes stacked in the sink and a simple table with various open boxes of cereal spread across it. There were crumbs all over the place. Tristian also noticed there were no pictures at all inside the apartment, no family or even of the person who lived there. Someone who lived alone, perhaps, without kids.

"Hello?" he called out softly, rapping his knuckles onto the doorframe. No answer. _This is a dead end. They're just not home._ But something compelled him to seek the further insides of the apartment.

He went left. The next room was probably a kind of guest room but held nothing but more boxes all still in that vague state between packed and unpacked. And shelves as well, lining the walls. Most of them contained toys of some sort, action figures and robots of all shapes and sizes, staring down at him with dead eyes. A couple airplanes and a few medieval looking toys, catapults and the like, rounded out the set. Tristian stood there and regarded them for a second, taking one off the shelf and turning it over. All the writing on it was in Japanese. A collector, then. That made a little more sense. Maybe he really wasn't home.

Then his ears caught the whirring again, definitely closer and definitely inside the apartment. Like a tiny buzzer pointing out the wrong answer again and again, until you were sick of being wrong. It was coming from the room beyond this one. Looking ahead, he expected the door to be closed because that was how these things always went for him. But he could see quite clearly inside and all he saw at first was the edge of a bed, planted against the center of the far wall. A table with a lamp and maybe a smaller block that could be a book on the nightstand. He still kept the sword close.

The first thing he saw when he entered the room was the outlet near the door. Something square was plugged into it, with some small cylindrical objects scattered about near it. Casting a glance to the other end of the room to make sure nothing was sneaking up on him, he crouched down to examine the object.

Tugging on it, he found that it came loose from the outlet easily and once held close he could clearly see it was a battery charger. Which meant the objects strewn at his feet were more batteries. _That's interesting._ The charger was warm to the touch which suggested it had been in use recently, even if it presently contained no batteries. But that wasn't the source of the whirring.

Setting the charger down, Tristian tilted his head to the side, listening closely. It was nearer, in this room somewhere. It was . . . _wait_-

Spinning around, Tristian faced the bed and for the first time saw the pair of feet sticking out from behind it.


	10. Chapter 10

* * * * *

"You? No, I don't believe so. For several reasons, if you'll allow me. One, you would be unable to find the perfect balance between work and your secret identity, thus rendering you too exhausted to do anything at all. Two, your futile desire to have a girlfriend would stop you from engaging in any kind of night time heroics, as you would not wish to tie up any potential, how do you say, 'date nights'. Three, you look terrible in any kind of leather or spandex and I am being _kind_ when I tell you that."

"I notice that none of your reasons involve me _not being crazy_."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, the potential is clearly there, Leonard. I've been observing you for years. You sigh forlornly every time Han Solo swings down to rescue the princess, your shoulders slump in sympathy each time Frodo is worn down by his quest, you hacked Microsoft Flight Simulator so it has warp speed and hyperspace options. You named your favorite pencil 'Excalibur' and jammed it into one of your erasers. You very much want the life that is promised by these things. And only two forces are keeping you from losing touch with reality entirely."

"I really shouldn't ask but, oh, what the hell . . . what forces are those?"

"Me. And the fact that you are an utter coward."

* * * * *

The man was sprawled onto his back, one arm throw over his face like a movie star effecting a dramatic faint. He was still dressed in pajamas, with the rough and rumpled quality of one who had just gotten out of bed. Even in the dark Tristian could tell he was still breathing, although it was shallow and slow, the type of respiration that occurred when the body was just trying to stay alive. His mouth was slightly open with a thin line of drool running down the edge of it and onto his chin, glistening as it dried.

A quick check of his pulse confirmed the notion that he was still alive, although his pulse was extremely slow as well, more resting but very close to comatose. Carefully Tristian moved his arm aside to get a better look at his face.

It was much as he expected. The eyes were half-open, and underneath he could see the pupils moving back and forth furiously, like someone caught in a dream that refused to have any doors. Or the doors refused to let themselves be conjured. It was at odds with the stillness of the rest of his body. _From the seizures? Seems odd he wouldn't be twitching somehow. Unless they managed a complete shutdown. _Tristian was no neurologist, so he couldn't even explain how the man had wound up like this. He might even be putting the pieces together in the wrong order. Perhaps it was a coincidence and he had simply passed out. This could be the aftereffects of a drunken night out, although he didn't smell any alcohol. Or maybe an overdose. Apartments were tiny boxes of secret privacies. It was impossible to get the measure of someone's life in the glimpse you got between them giving you a cordial hello and shutting the door. This would all be perfectly unnatural, if not for that constant quiet whirring. Still.

The man's other arm was outstretched, disappearing under the bed. Tristian gave it a tug and dragged it out so that he could see the hand. Nothing. The fingers were curled like he had been holding something in those last few seconds but other than some mottling around the palm area, it was as unrevealing as the rest of the body. _However_. The noise was still present and now his ears were able to pinpoint as coming from somewhere under the bed.

"Sorry," he said to the oblivious fellow, gently shoving his body closer to the wall so he could put his own body flat on the floor. Of course, it was dark underneath but the noise was much more present, like machinery keeping the bed in place. Or the man telling him that one time about the gears that ran the world. _If you block out all other sounds, you can hear them finally. And then you won't be able to hear anything else, no matter how loud the world gets_. He had started crying then, begging them to make it stop, to please stop just for one second, because he couldn't bear it anymore. Mad, clearly, but Tristian couldn't remember what the trigger had been. That was going to bother him now.

The underside was of course coated in a thin layer of dust and it was all he could do to keep from sneezing. It was even darker than the rest of the room and he was tempted to ignite the sword for a little illumination. But for once he wanted to have a situation where it wasn't necessary. But amongst the landscape of dust bunnies and what he hoped weren't dead insects, Tristian saw something else. A bulkier object, still small but having trim and oblique angles. Stretching, his fingers brushed against metal. Not garbage, then.

Grunting, he slid it out, bracing himself against the bed to shift to one knee. He attached the sword to his belt so he could regard the object better, brushing some dust off it for a clearer view.

It was a toy robot. Squarish in shape, with a smaller rectangle for a head and two big eyes that stared at him with a mixture of surprise and inquisitiveness. The arms hung down straight but there were joints at the shoulder that suggested it could be posed. The front of it held various circuit type components, all part of the decoration. In proper lighting it would probably shine. It had been beamed directly from the mind of someone who had enjoyed one too many 1950s sci-fi movies. But then, why not? This whole day was feeling like one of those movies gone terribly off-track.

He held it out in front of him, trying to piece the scenario together. Not all of it fit together properly. The man had been holding the toy when whatever had happened to render him unconscious had come down. But why would have gotten up, picked up the robot and then walked back toward his bed? That made little sense.

Tristian looked down at the man, now turned so that his body was slightly fetal and facing the wall. "Did you sleep with it, like a stuffed animal?" It was part jest but it was also something he didn't totally understand. Maybe Leonard and Sheldon might grasp it better, but this was a world he was only visiting. In a real sense, it was where they lived.

As he thought that though, another notion occurred to him just then. Maybe two at the same time. _If you block out all other sounds. _The madman whose voice he couldn't shake. _ Then you won't be able to hear anything_. And what had made him that way. _No matter how loud the rest of the world gets_. The haunted reflection in his wide eyes. A reflection that glinted of metal and the impossible. _No matter how loud._ Robots. He'd seen Dakkers, sentient robots.

_Please, I can't hear anything anymore._

Suddenly Tristian realized the world had gone silent.

_Except their constant_

The lights on the toy's eyes flared up into a stark and garish green.

_noise_

Its little legs started moving as the whirring started up again

_ because it never stops_

and the little toy said quite clearly

"_He was only the first."_

* * * * *

"Excuse me? I am not a-"

"Please. Pause for a second so I can say this. Before you go any further in trying to defend yourself, I just want you to know that I can have three examples to support my statement at the forefront of my cerebrum instantly and a good probability of six more coming to mind the longer this conversation goes on. Is this really an argument you want to get into?"

"Well . . . all right. But maybe I just haven't had a chance to prove my mettle."

"If you want my advice, I would finish your war against the spider you keep insisting is in the shower before graduating into bolder acts."

"It was back the other night! I don't know you never see it, I swear it keeps getting bigger every time."

"Of course it does, Leonard."

"So you're saying I can never be a hero? Heroes have all kinds of flaws, it's what makes them human. I'm not trying to be some kind of mythological archetype."

"Thank goodness for that. Being driven by vengeance because one's family has been slaughtered is a flaw, lactose intolerance is something else entirely. These differences may not seem crucial to you, but they are meaningful."

"All that should matter is how hard you to work to overcome them. But, really, what makes a hero different from any of us? I mean, okay, Joe there, Commander, Grand Moff, whatever . . . he's got the whole regeneration thing going on-"

"That's because he's secretly a Time Lord-"

"For the love of God, _he is not a Time Lord. _Don't _look_ at me like that, I know you're not completely delusional. But anyway, all right, so Joe's got some sort of super-power . . . but Tristian? What about that guy?"

"The guy with the magic sword? That stalwart fellow?"

"Forget the sword, all right? Take it away, and . . . what makes him special? Nothing, right? He's just an ordinary guy. The same as you and me."

"Well, he probably can't do multi-variable calculus in maple syrup on one's pancakes. But then I suppose he would consider that his loss."

"Yeah, I imagine he would. But science-fiction is full of ordinary, average people being confronted by things they don't understand, situations that they aren't capable of handling . . . and they find a way to manage. They rise up. Daniel Boone Davis in _The Door Into Summer. _Kip Russell in _Have Spacesuit Will Travel_. All those Heinlein heroes. Even the apathetic guy with the weird diction in _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ eventually found his footing. Because they had no choice. But they figure it out. Why can't that be us?"

"Because we don't like beings from another world attempting to kill us?"

"No, God, I don't. _That's_ for sure. I'm still hearing a big band tune in my head. But . . . what if these two weren't here and we really had aliens in the apartment? And winning or losing this came down to us? Could we do it? Because right now what we're doing is hiding out in your room-"

"Yes, about that-"

"Hiding out in your room, sitting on the floor with our backs to the door waiting for this to be over. Is that what we'd do? When we realized that the aliens had gone into Penny's apartment, Tristian ran across the hall. _Ran_. Didn't even hesitate. He had no idea whose apartment it even was. Going there was just what he needed to do. The same way that I know the penetration depths required for a superconductor to work. It was just that simple."

"He's left the room again, I believe, following the latest attack. Judging from what the good Commander was cursing quite creatively about, he's wandering around the building looking for a solution. Presumably he'll find one in the nick of time just when we come back from the final commercial break and things look dire. At which point we'll make our no doubt valuable contributions to this whole scenario and justify our appearances in the episode."

"I really can't tell if you're speaking metaphorically or you actually believe we're in some kind of weird television show. No, don't answer that, the less I know about how your brain works, the better. But . . . he went out? Of course he did. Again. I barely know the guy and I bet he does that all the time. I just . . . why can't I do things like that, Sheldon? Why can't I just seize the initiative and do what needs to be done? Why am I always standing around waiting to react to things instead of making them happen? Instead of just standing up and saying 'This is how I want it to go.'"

"Ah, Leonard . . . can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Are we talking about invading aliens anymore?"

"Of course we . . . okay, maybe not."

"Ooh, I didn't think so. My powers of perception are increasing daily."

"Maybe I'm doing what my mother would call projecting. Among other things. I'm just frustrated. I'm frustrated because I'm just sitting here and I'm frustrated because I can't think of anything to do that doesn't put my stomach all in knots and I'm frustrated that any of this is even bothering me because most sane people would think that I'm doing the best possible action in this situation. But it's not good enough for me. But I can't leave."

"So you think Tristian should be sitting in here with us trading nuggets of angst disguised as witty banter?"

"No, God, no. But . . . I'd like to know why he's not."

"Oh, that I can tell you easily."

"Somehow I really doubt that but . . . what the hell, go for it."

"Why, he's clearly progressed into Stage IV."

* * * * *

Tristian took it as a positive sign that as strange as this day was going, the toy suddenly talking was still able to throw him off guard. This manifested in a literal throwing as he flung the robot across the room, aiming for the far corner with an outward motion of his arm, pushing himself into the opposite direction toward the floor. The bright green of its eyes became a diminishing twin flare as it sailed across the room, finally disappearing somewhere in the distant corner. Even the _clunk_ of its landing was lost in the yawning absence of sound.

_Easy, easy,_ he thought to himself, easing the sword back into his hand. He left it sheathed, not wanting to give himself away. _Its not like it can shoot lasers at you. It's only a toy. _But it meant they were in the room somewhere with him, perhaps not in the wires. Not anymore. Somehow they were able to get out without having to physically incorporate themselves. None of the potential possibilities of this struck him as a good thing.

Getting back upstairs was going to have to a priority now. He couldn't afford a pitched fight in someone's apartment, at the risk of it spreading and getting more people involved. But it was also possible they had taken over the floor, and every floor below him. He crept along the wall, the open hilt of the sword pointed ahead and his finger poised on the switch. He noticed that the whirring had stopped again. Did the toy break? In the dark he hadn't been able to see exactly where it landed. The glow of its gaze was missing, it had either switched off or was turned toward the wall. He wasn't about to search for it. How the hell had they been able to get into the toy? So far everything they had managed was connected to an outlet somehow, the lights, the baby monitor, even the appliances down in the basement. They weren't able to become radio waves, jumping through thin air.

Near the door now, one hand feeling around the corner. Nothing was waiting, nothing was stirring. Tristian put his back against the doorframe, rising to his feet slowly, doing his best to scan the dark. Everything had settled back into soaked and abstracted shapes, sunken into oblique cushions. A museum exhibit that had just decided it was going to be about evolution. About sudden change. _How did they get into a toy? _Things were only as you left them until you started paying attention to how it had all become different. _It wasn't attached to anything. _No, don't think like that. The room was the same. _Just lying there under the bed. _Walls, nightstand, bed, it was all matching the initial schematics in his brain. Everything at right angles, laid out on that perfect grid. _Did I do something when I picked it up. _He began to ease his way around the corner and out.

Then his foot kicked against a small cylindrical object. He jerked his foot away a second later but he still heard the rattle of its roll on the hard floor, as well as the tiny tap it made when it hit. _Wait. _Tristian stopped, letting himself freeze. _Wait. _The shape of it was clear, even against the dark. _There was one way. _His vision easily separated it out from the opaque surroundings, instantly filing it back into the familiar. _A very simple way. _So distinctive, one that he'd seen so many times in his life that it had become mundane and nearly invisible, not even worth considering.

_How do you get an electronic device to work without plugging it in?_

Because how often did he really pay attention to a battery unless he needed one?

_So you can use it anywhere you want?_

And he could see now several littering the floor at his feet, like stealthy silent bacteria. Ones he had barely paid any mind to when he first entered the room.

_Anywhere at all._

Ones that he remembered now were sitting right near the charger plugged into the outlet, its blocky shape clinging to the wall like some kind of portal.

_Oh, sh-_

By the time he heard the buzzing it was already too late.

* * * * *

"Oh, don't start that. Don't start trying to put him into your little made-up disease."

"Why not? He fits it perfectly. All the criteria are evident."

"Come on . . . you can't just diagnose people like that. You've been in the same room as the guy for what, an hour?"

"You don't need to be a doctor to tell if the patient is suffering from a broken limb."

"Not if its a compound fracture, otherwise you need to take an X-ray and . . . oh God, the rumors were true, apparently _The Merck Manual _can be sexually transmitted."

"I'm sure you've just delineated the fantasies of every med school student who ever wanted to write _Grey's Anatomy_ fan-fiction."

"What? How would you even know . . . that's it, no more Internet privileges for you. Not until you're old enough to understand. Besides, I didn't think you even knew that show existed."

"Howard barged in here once while you were away and made me watch it. I must confess, I don't know when they find the time to practice medicine amidst all the other shenanigans. I spent most of the time charting the various apparent relationships on the show. Amazingly, it looks not unlike a dodecahedron."

"That's fascinating, Sheldon but . . . but we're getting off-_topic_. You said Stage IV people were delusional . . . that they had a total break from reality."

"Yes, and I stand by that. You see, Leonard, you're right, Tristian is not like you or I. Definitely not like me. He is completely ordinary in every sense of the word and thus lacks the capacity to understand exactly what is happening right now."

"He seemed to have a pretty good grasp of things when he stabbed the blanket in Penny's apartment."

"Ordinary people, when confronted by the extraordinary and other matters that are beyond all normal understanding, aren't capable of processing it correctly. Thus, they have only two real options in those situations . . . they could put as much distance between themselves and the bizarre situation as humanly possible by fleeing in abject terror . . ."

"I know you've got an _or_ in there somewhere, but I really wish you didn't."

"Or they can cope by switching off entirely and accepting whatever situation has developed as the new reality and achieving a sort of functional insanity."

"Oh, something tells me you'd know a lot about _that_. So you're saying just because he's not running away and screaming he's insane? I'm not quite sure he'd agree with that."

"Think of it this way, Leonard. We have without a doubt aliens in our apartment building. They have more or less declared their intent to be hostile, or even if they are not actively hostile, their actions can be construed as such. I understand perfectly how these situations work, thanks to my vast experience researching these matters."

"A _Deep Space Nine_ marathon does not count as research. I don't care how many times you point to the message boards and insist that your commentary has been 'peer-reviewed.'"

"Thus, most people with experience instantly understand the nature of the situation, accept the abnormality of it and act accordingly."

"Like hiding in someone's bedroom hoping that someone else will take care of it for us and make it all go away?"

"See, in this case we are the ones doing the right thing. We are not _hiding, _we are debating, we are analyzing, we are combing the events of the past few hours for past continuity references and attempting to fit it into the framework of a consistent universe. We are categorizing and extrapolating. We are getting ready to nitpick the parts of the story that don't coincide with our vision of how the story should go and are prepared to engage in lengthy debate about those aspects of it until the sun comes up or the ISP shuts us down. We are deciding which costumes to criticize and which bits of dialogue to dissect for future foreshadowing. We'll debate how much of this is planned and how much of it is made up as people go along."

"Um, I'm pretty sure I'm doing none of those things."

"Tristian isn't treating any of this as extraordinary at all. Indeed, he's acting like this is just another day at the office and this is just some run of the mill crisis he can solve through normal means. He keeps doing the exact opposite of what normal people like us would do, hence we can only conclude that he has conditioned himself into believing this is all how the world should be in order to cope with it. A complete psychotic break."

"Or . . . or maybe this is how the world is and we just never see it."

"Good heavens, not you too."

"The thing is, Sheldon, if I follow your I'm sure very well thought out theory . . . if everyone does what you expect them to do and avoids the problem . . . who is going to stop the aliens?"

"Well, Leonard, if Heisenberg taught us one thing, it's that no situation is truly ideal . . ."

* * * * *

Muscles jarred into slippery motion, sloughed off kinetics like gravity finally taking hold of the glacier and doing its best to bring him down. The incoming dot was a roaring blur at the edge of the field of his peripheral vision, all trajectories suspect. Parabolas were not on his side and even with his evasion the impact still glanced off the slope of his forehead, like being punched by a lightly clenched fist. The world turned into opaque concentric circles like condensed raindrops, his thoughts scrambled and out of order. _What the hell was that? _The buzzing became louder, a series of flies forming a jaw and opening wide, aimed with the goal of swallowing him whole. His head was throbbing fiercely, sending spider-lines of pain encircling his skull, right over the top and down the back, deep into the base of his neck. Forming thoughts was trying to assemble a puzzle in the midst of rapids. But he didn't need to think now, already automatic gears were shifting in his brain, angles calculated and actions extrapolated, theoretical grids overlaid in three dimensions as something beyond instinct took over.

It was coming around again, the intersecting Doppler waves giving him all the coordinates that he needed. The buzzing went low, sharpened. He was on the ground, two knees, one, crouched, his position kept shifting. Getting ready. He was not a moving target, there was no such thing in a world of constant entropy. You either progressed or you stood still. And if you stood still the world would go right over you. It was merely a matter of matching pace, and anticipating. He went low, the dust of the floor an abstract tickle that he refused to acknowledge. The buzzing went overhead again in the shape of an inverted rainbow, the wind of its passage defined more by the hollow it carved in the air. Swinging around in the flattened pitch of its arc, already guessing where he would be. He had every intention of being there.

He was rolling when it came down, the two of silently agreeing to meet at a place that had been agreed upon long before this had ever started. It was amazing how many conclusions were inevitable when you came down to it. If he had known, so long ago, he might never have even started.

The sword was in his hand, of course. It had always been there. _I don't want this to be an extension of me_, he had told them so early on. _I don't want to be known for this. Not when there's so much else we can do._ He was fighting sound, trying to swat away what refused to be solid. It was coming down and he had the sword and if it ended another way it wouldn't be his story anymore.

_And if you found yourself before a locked door and in possession of the key, would you refuse to use it because it didn't suit your image of yourself?_ He did his best to drown out the voice, the memory of the voice. The buzzing, locked into descent, held every past syllable as inbred spines, ready to deliver all that he wanted to forget. _It's only a tool._

His finger slid along the switch. The advent of the humming was an innocent sneer travelling up the length of his forearm. The room was suffused with a sunset.

_Don't delude yourself into thinking its anything else._

He pivoted on the floor and the humming went up, as it had to, and met with the buzzing, as it needed to. Above, the buzzing split apart like a joint becoming unhinged and came down. Twin thuds and a brief bounced clatter marked the end of the fall.

Leaping up into a crouched and ready stance, Tristian swung the sword around slowly, letting the blade's glow pan around the room. Near and to his left, the buzzing sputtered for just a few more seconds before becoming doused completely. The crimson haze spilled in that direction, revealing the silently shuddering corpse of the front half of a small scale prop plane, the propellers still trying to turn against the floor. A twist unveiled the back end of it, slumped sadly on the other side of him.

_Did I kill some of you just then? If you have no way out, can you survive? _He had no one to ask. Carefully he stood up, sweeping the sword out as a kind of slow shield, coloring the air in front of him into a haze. It was only a few steps to the door, and then the living room beyond and then he was out of here. Somehow the muted brightness of it was making a burgeoning headache worse. His forehead was aching where the plane had struck it, like the sword's glimmer was forcing its way through a crack formed in his head. Distantly, he wondered if he was bleeding. This was going to be hard to explain to Joe. He needed to leave here, now.

Tristian had just straightened up when a trio of whooshings came rocketing out from the next room, splitting and attempting to flank him. The thin light from the outer edges gave him a better view this time as the first object dipped its wings and went to swat at him. _Jets. This is insane._ Expecting it, he ducked down and came behind it, the sword clipping the slim chunk of the engine. It wobbled and veered away, crashing into the bed with a sickening crunch that even the mattress couldn't muffle. The two remaining banked, motion-spears in the dark pointed right for his chest. He was the vampire they were attempting to stake, with their amateur tools, with whatever weapons they could find.

Dancing back, the sword wove intersecting circles ahead of him. One didn't veer away in time and the nose was sliced off. The other went unexpectedly up and then dove back down again, passing over and behind the arc of the sword. He couldn't swing that close without hitting himself and it was past caring, in a place beyond suicide. The fins sliced down the front of his chest as the hard plastic of it broke against him. Tristian gasped as he stumbled backwards and fell, feeling the scrape through his shirt. It stung more than anything else but it only further proved this was no game. Before him the jet was unable to right itself and crashed to the floor, cracking the cockpit open and sending scale model seats and controls scattering all over. Part of him, woozy from the blow to the head and slightly disoriented from the attack, expected to see the tiny parts of a pilot littered about the floor. He was smelling smoke and for a second thought the hive had set the room on fire. But no, it was just coming from the shattered planes, probably a little feature in them to make it look more realistic. They were just toys. At least nobody thought to design them with toy missiles. A mother's voice that wasn't his kept warning him to be careful or he'd put his eye out.

It was a warning that nearly came true. A flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye warned him just in time to move his head as a spiked object shot past him, skittering along the floor. Tristian swung his legs around to face the door, still staying close to the floor. Somehow the sword was failing to illuminate anything. The jet next to him was still screaming, the engines only succeeding in pushing it bare inches along the floor. A triangular silhouette not unlike scaffolding could be seen in the doorway, with a single strut pointed upward like a flagpole for a country he didn't belong in.

With a motorized whirring, another came to join it on its left, followed by another on the right, although neither of these possessed flagpoles.

A _twang_ was the only dialogue any of them possessed. The flagpoles came up and two small objects came rocketing toward him, all angles askew, looking like frozen splatters in the half-dark. The first one he didn't even need to move for, as it fell short and skidded along the floor, coming to rest a short distance away. The other forced him to shift his weight and it thudded into the ground, a piece of breaking off and skating toward him, tapping with futile strength against his hand. The sword's light revealed a tiny arm, its molded plastic skin alight in garish crimson. The rest of the body rested nearby, crumpled and mutilated, the face turned away as if ashamed.

_Really? They make toy catapults? _Tristian didn't know how toy catapults reloaded, but wasn't about to stay to find out. He took the opportunity of the lull to move, rushing toward the door even as the catapults started to back away, having perhaps expected their actions to have different results. He kicked the first one he encountered, sending it spinning toward the opposite corner, the wheels trying to find traction on empty air.

"_Don't worry, citizen, justice will be served_," said a voice too close.

A _pop_ made him dive backwards as a spherical projectile sailed near his head. Tristian hit the wall with the sword held in both hands, searching for the source. There was another _pop_, followed by the dull noise of a ricochet too close.

"_Don't worry, citizen, justice will be served."_

Tristian turned to see a small soldier, about twelve inches high, sitting on the shelf near his head. The painted on eyes weren't staring directly at him but one arm kept going up and down in sharp karate motions, the fingers molded together to slice through the air.

"_Don't worry, citizen, justice will be served."_

The _pop_ gave itself away again. A light _bap_ against his shoulder signaled the shot finding its mark. But this time Tristian saw where it was coming from, a high shelf across the room where two tanks, apparently of different nationalities judging by the lettering he could barely make out, kept swiveling their turrets and trying to make him a target.

"_Don't worry, citizen, justice will be served."_

Another catapult bumped against his ankle, all its shots discarded. Not seeing any results, it started to back up to try again. Tristian kicked it aside, sending it tumbling back into the bedroom. Somewhere too near he heard the sound of another engine firing up and preparing to take off. This was getting ridiculous, he had to stop it before all these got out and they learned how to cause actual damage. Explaining to Joe why a toy army was roaming the lower floors was not really a conversation he wanted to get into today. The man was probably irritated enough that he had run off on his own. But Tristian didn't want to be the type who waited around for people to give him orders. Nor did he want to give them. It seemed impossible for anyone to understand.

"_Don't worry, citizen, justice will be served."_

The tank pivoted to fire again, but two steps took Tristian across to it and suddenly the cannons were severed with a swipe of the sword. He hoped the person who lived here wasn't into mint condition toys. But already he could see other toys stirring, lights blinking on a battleship, sparks beginning to spew from the open chest of another robot. Yet another one nearby, shiny and almost transparent, began to shout out grating phrases in another language. A grappling hook fired from a space to his left, falling short even as the string attached to it began to reel it back immediately. The tinny sound of descending bombs began to fill the small room. Another foam ball came rocketing out of nowhere, bopping him in the cheek. _I really need to end this._

"_Don't worry, citizen, justice will be served._"

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toy firing plastic pizza wheels at him was the last straw, especially when one came very close to his eye. A scraping above warned him just before a cylindrical spiked robot with glowing purple eyes shoved a Ghostbusters car off the shelf and toward his head. It screamed all the way down and Tristian sliced it in half with the sword almost on reflex.

"_Don't worry, citizen, justice will be ser-"_

With a quick flick of his wrist he ran the sword alongside the bottom of the shelves, cutting off the supports that kept them nailed to the wall. They started to fall immediately, some of them chiming or buzzing or beeping as they came down so that the room was suddenly filled with an electronic crescendo, the descending cacophony skirting the edge of an atonal, uneasy melody that even the constant crashing and crackings as each one hit the floor couldn't overwhelm.

Tristian stayed one step ahead of the destruction, striding along the edges of the room, the sword cutting a thin mark in the wall as it went along. _Joe probably would have wanted me to inventory this so that he could go replace them later._ The practicalities of these situations was still a facet he was unable to get used to. Perhaps this life was beginning to seem too normal. Nostalgia was being smashed apart at his feet, faces and heads and headlights shattering and spinning, unidentifiable plastic and metal shards littering the floor in an impossible puzzle. He was bringing it all down as they called to him in binary, in bloopings, in fragmented catchphrases like a child's half-remembered recollections of every Saturday morning cartoon show ever. Barnyard animals with capes, superheroes in garish masks and fixed poses, articulated warriors with arms spread apart as they toppled in a bizarre form of suicide. It was all coming down, the solid wood of the shelves acting like a series of blunted guillotines, breaking apart what the crash didn't cause first.

It didn't end so much as rumble to a stuttered halt, the last broken piece fluttering in a circle until friction finally brought it to a stillness. The ground was scattered with bones that didn't fit any kind of skeleton. The wreckage lay around him without any kind of logic, the blade giving everything a harsh cast. A toy apocalypse had occurred and he stood in the center as an orchestrator. Tristian regarded the scene for a few seconds, trying to think of some kind of flippant remark that he was pretty sure Brown could have come up with, but nothing came to mind. All he could really do was hope that he hadn't just demolished someone's childhood.

Still, it was the toys that got the last laugh, as he turned to walk away. A dark battery seated against a dark floor, probably spilled out from the cracking of one of the many soldiers in the army, found its way underfoot. Stalking into full stride, Tristian didn't see it in time and suddenly found his foot sliding out too fast, at an arc that wasn't kind to his center of gravity. The room, already fractured, took on a new cast as it tilted into the featureless stretch of the ceiling.

He landed on his back, his shoulder blades hitting hard against the floor. The sword went spinning from his hand, whirling to cut a shallow groove into the floor before rolling to a stop with its tip buried partially in the wall. Tristian let himself lay there for a few seconds, hearing the stray battery rolling away with a rattle that sounded not unlike laughter at the right frequency.

_I am not telling anyone about this_, he told the ceiling, the two of them making a silent but still binding pact. _If Lena asks me what happened I will tell her that I fought a bunch of toys and walked home victorious. And then change the subject._ His headache was starting to come back, the quiet igniting the dull throbbing again. It felt like a small lump was beginning to form as well. He'd suffered worse before, so he'd manage. _Your cooperation on this is essential, so I'm glad we're in full agreement_, he told the ceiling. _It must never leave this room_.

Sighing to himself, he rolled over onto his side, reaching for the sword. He'd have to keep it on now since he was going back to the apartment. He didn't know why they bothered with the charade, amusing as it was. Penny seemed like she could handle the truth, hanging around with those two meant this couldn't have been the strangest thing she'd ever seen. Something told him that the story of their lives, arranged in a certain way, would make for a rather comic series of mishaps.

Tristian's hand had just closed around the hilt when he heard the whirring start up again.

He froze at first, thinking it might have been just a side effect of the headache. But the sound kept ratcheting upwards, failing to grow louder but moving closer.

Swiftly, he rolled in the other direction, coming up smoothly into a low crouch, the sword held out levelly and parallel to the floor as he faced the blank hole that was the entrance to the bedroom.

The whirring suddenly stopped without ceasing, a motion held tightly in place.

Without moving, Tristian waited.

Close to the floor, two bright green circles flared into life from deep inside the room.

"Hello again," Tristian said.


	11. Chapter 11

* * * * *

"So what are we supposed to do now, then? Hide out here until someone gives the all-clear?"

"Being that this is my room, I'm quite content with that. I've been thinking that this is a wonderful time to start recataloging my issues of _The Flash_ by which particular hue of red they use for his costume over the years. The shift from Pantone 185 to Pantone 200 around the time of Barry Allen's trial I am convinced is definitely not a coincidence but a subtle way of suggesting the utter gravity of the situation he now found himself in. Although I hope the one issue shift to Pantone 174 was just the colorist asleep at the wheel because it really did look just ghastly."

"Do you ever listen to yourself? Like, really listen?"

"Why, Leonard, of course I do. Often times I'm the only person in the world worth listening to."

"I just don't get it, Sheldon. On the one hand you're all gung-ho about being part of this little imaginary Time Lord Patrol squad of theirs, ready for action and reporting for duty-"

"That's not the right salute. Your hand should be at more of an angle to your eyebrow. Here, let me show you on the protractor . . ."

"Don't! Don't you dare. Or you'll be measuring what angle you're plummeting at when I toss you out the window. No, what I'm trying to say is that sometimes you're acting like you know this is real and other times it seems like you think we're in some strange television fantasy. Like it's a dream we're all going to wake up from together or Tristian and Joe are going to pull off their masks and say 'Surprise, we're all just actors!'"

"Both need not necessarily be false."

"That's a little hard to believe, Sheldon. Which is it?"

"You've heard of the _Galaxy Quest _Postulate, I take it?"

"Yeah, of course but . . . oh, come on, that's only theoretical."

"Only because we never had an actual event to analyze properly."

"No, really. My team proved during that panel debate at Quasar-CON V that it could only occur through a specific set of variables all congregating at the exact same time. In fact, it was possible that the scenario could only be brought about by factors specific to its era. Don't tell me you're still subscribing to your team's notion. That's what this is all about?"

"While I'll agree that the premise as stated is probably unlikely, even if your team had to hijack the panel in order to get your very poorly supported theory out onto the floor-"

"I'm sorry, but when you announce that 'Anyone who doesn't believe my theory is clearly sub-mental', you're just asking for a rebuttal there. Though I should have just let the mob peg you. If my group hadn't stormed the stage and turned it into a debate, the Scottish Engineer Corps would still be trying to scatter your molecules."

"While the core of my theory has yet to be proven by circumstance and is thus filed in the 'I'm not right . . . yet' folder, there has been plenty of evidence to back up one of the smaller linked postulates."

"You're going to have to narrow it down for me, you had six pages of sub-clauses. And some of _those_ had footnotes."

"Succinctly put, the sub-postulate stated that when any scenario arises that involving certain elements that one might find typical of a science-fiction episode, the events of that scenario will start to unfold much in the same structured manner of one of those episodes, so that a certain dramatic arc can be followed. We are in that scenario now, Leonard, and matters are going exactly according to the flow chart that I came up with so long ago."

"Come on, that's nonsense. This is . . . as weird as this is going to sound, real life. That doesn't follow the structure of a fictional drama."

"And yet, so far it has, in every way. We've had the opening cliffhanger mystery, the initial misconception of what is truly going on, the gradual unfolding of the true nature of the threat, the first salvo of the attack, the regrouping and the reassessment, the setback and now we're into the second regrouping where the heroes will come up with the solution that will save the day and everyone will go home happy. I could have drawn a map to today if I didn't want to see if you would figure it out for yourself. I'm a little disappointed that you didn't. Not surprised, but a little disappointed."

"Sorry, mom. I'll try harder next time we're under attack to analyze what's going on and insert into pre-determined categories so that you can feel better about yourself."

"Leonard, please. I've gotten much better at identifying sarcasm these days."

"Oh and here I was thinking I was sincere. So what's our place in this whole thing? And if you say sympathetic fodder I will reach over and strangle you."

"Audience identification figures, of course. The average viewer is not going to be able to understand the world that Tristian and Commander Brown live in, so without someone familiar to them this whole story is going to be incomprehensible. Thus you have average, ordinary people to act as your entry point. That's us."

"It's nice to know that we have a purpose. And in some fantasy world would be considered average and ordinary."

"Well, this is fiction. We act as the filter for the audience to interpret these events, otherwise they would make precious little sense to anyone. Without us, Tristian and the Commander are just two lunatics running around an apartment screaming about aliens. Its our presence that gives the tale its weight and resonance."

"This may be the first theory of yours I don't mind completely."

"Which is why once the two of them are taken out, we're going to have to save the day by doing something ordinary and average."

"Excuse me . . . what?"

"The dramatic arc demands it. We have to justify our presences in the story as more than simply plot window dressing or else we'll be exposed for the frauds that we are and the only story will lose meaning. We _have_ to do something, and that time is coming now."

"I really don't like when you look intense. Why does this story have to have some kind of meaning? Why can't it be just about aliens inside an apartment that we'd like gone? Can't it just be about that?"

"And I suppose you'd like your story to just be about a nerdy fellow living across the hall from an apparently attractive young lady, and nothing more. Because why should it be about anything else?"

"I hate you."

"Without meaning, Leonard, they're just piled on events without connection, without beginning or ending. If you believe that our lives are leading to something and not just a random collection of moments, then when the time comes we're going to have to stop the hive. It's as inevitable as entropy."

"I wish you had used a different metaphor just now."

"Or as inevitable as the sand getting into my joints after I spend five minutes on Tatooine. Compared to that, this place is an improvement over the places I normally find myself stuck with you."

"What?"

"But we're trapped in a room with only one exit and the bounty hunters have proven to be somewhat resourceful, Deckard. Its only a matter of time before we run out of the space the Grand Moff's gambit bought us. And if he's out of ideas, it's going to be up to us."

"Oh come on, Sheldon, I told you we weren't playing that game now. Can't you give it a rest for just a-"

"I understand what you're saying, but we can only keep the princess in the dark for so long about the true extent of the danger. Eventually she's going to start to suspect that we are fudging the facts. And you know that I am incapable of lying."

"Tell me about it. But Penny is not going to-"

"And being that my sensors can't tell me how long she's been listening outside the door, it's impossible to say how much she's heard so far . . ."

"Wait, what do you . . . come on, Sheldon, don't play games here. If I open this door and . . . oh. _Hey_. Ah, hello Penny. You're looking very . . . princessy today."

"Can it, 'Deckard'. What the hell am I not going to find out?"

* * * * *

A long silence stretched in the space between them. All the lit up and active toys must have created some sort of illumination because the room was that much darker now, thrown into a kind of frozen twilight. Dust was broken shelves was raining down gently, settling in no apparent pattern. The head of a lone soldier stared at him mournfully, lifelike painted eyes daring Tristian to make a move, a crimson glint hinting of hidden motives. The bedroom beyond was darker still, the lights floating as distant UFOs.

"You figured out how to get into the batteries," Tristian said, wondering how the robot could even hear him. The toy wasn't exactly equipped with auditory sensors. Though who knew what they had come up with since he had been a kid. "That was actually fairly clever of you. I'm kind of impressed." He kept his voice casual, even as he slid into a lopsided sitting position, one leg flat and curled inward while the other stayed bent, knee in the air. The sword rested between his feet, his hand not on the hilt but also not far from it. The blade was pointed toward the bedroom, a runway set afire and seen from a distance.

Tristian reached over and picked up an arm holding a small rifle, the grip refusing to relinquish the weapon. Frowning, he turned it over and over in his hand. "If you had done things like that from the beginning we wouldn't be here, having this conversation." With some bending he managed to take the rifle out of the toy's hand, separating the two almost reverently. "I've been learning a lot of things myself in the last year, things I never expected to learn." He balanced the gun between two fingers, studying the molded plastic and all its details. "I've learned that Martians have no conception of the color red, and don't like being reminded of that. I know how to tell someone to put down a ray gun in six different languages, two of which don't require a throat. I've learned that a call for help sounds the same no matter who is speaking." He pressed against the gun, dimpling his skin to the point where it became clear that either the gun would have to snap or draw blood. It trembled in that silent stalemate and Tristian didn't look sure of what the outcome of his own contest might be. "I've learned that my girlfriend really enjoys things that smell like lavender, no matter what they are. And that she finds the look I give her hilarious when she calls me a space hero . . ." he grimaced at the phrase though it wasn't clear if that was just the tension exerted on the weapon. "I've found that no one is really alone unless they consciously choose to be. _That_ was a hard lesson. I've also found that if a fight breaks out on a spaceship, someone always falls against the button that opens the airlock. Always. I don't get it." He laughed quietly, without looking up. "I've also discovered that I don't like teleporting at all, even though everyone insists on using that as their primary method of travel. Don't tell Joe, but the reason I didn't join him right away after we got here was because I had to sit down until my stomach caught up with the rest of me." The green lights didn't flicker or waver. Tristian glanced up at them and back to the gun, murmuring, "Let's keep that as our secret."

He shifted, pulling in a little closer to himself. His voice barely masked his intensity. The gun was beginning to bend, the center of it straining. "So, you see, we've all learned things here. You want to stay here and you're willing to fight for it. I know that. You managed to get into the wiring, discovered how to use the devices that you've tapped into. You even spent all that time cycling through the light frequencies until you found the exact pattern that would induce a seizure in a human being. And with the batteries . . . if nobody ever noticed, maybe you could have even stayed here forever. Then who knows what you could have accomplished?" He grunted, the bend forcing itself in the opposite direction. "But there's one lesson that hasn't occurred to you yet, it seems, for all you've discovered. Once you start hurting others to get what you want, you don't get a say anymore in how this goes. There's always going to be someone who will stop you. Even if you think you've covered all the angles and thought out every possibility . . ."

With a deft motion, Tristian suddenly shifted the gun from two hands to one, spreading all his fingers at different points. He suddenly looked up to stare right into the rounded glow.

". . . someone will always figure out a way around it."

His hand twitched and the gun broke with a quiet snap. Tristian looked down at it, as if surprised, cradling the pieces in his hand. With a sigh he shifted them to his other hand, reaching down with his left to scoop up the sword. The haze formed a cone and widened.

"This would be a good home for your hive, I know, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen. I'm sorry." He did sound like he meant it. Casually, easily, he stood up. "You're going to leave here, one way or another. And it's up to you whether you do that with your hive intact or . . ."

Face set, he tossed the broken pieces of the rifle into the bedroom. He heard them hit and tumble into the darkness with a weak clatter. The gaze never budged from him, hovering like solid pools, the reflection of an odd moon.

He let those rattles finish his sentence. When he felt that it had sunk in, he held the sword at an angle so that its light bled into the next room, the glow touching the hazy color like an infection, trying to force it to wane. It had no effect that he could see.

"No matter what you've learned," Tristian said quietly, "don't make the mistake of believing you know everything. Because you don't. I'll tell you now, this is as far as it goes."

Tristian regarded the toy buried in the dark for a few seconds more, waiting for it to stir, to yell, to give him some kind of gesture of defiance or surrender. Nothing came. _Maybe the batteries had gone dead_, he thought, absurdly. Either way, he had said what he needed to say. Smartly, he turned on his heel to exit the room, the sword leaving a ghost trail behind him.

He got as far as the door into the living room when the voice grated out behind him, "_But aren't you curious to find out what else we've learned._"

And a tiny electronic wail began to escalate up the scale.

* * * * *

"Oh, Penny, hey . . . that's great how you're acting totally in character by glaring at me in such an . . . imperial fashion . . ."

"Leonard, I wouldn't use that word. We're fighting the Imperials, remember?"

"Sheldon, you need to be quiet now . . ."

"Okay, I'm going to be honest here, I didn't get your little game at all but I went along with it because it seemed kind of fun. Weird, but fun."

"I'm just pointing out that it's probably not going to improve her mood any."

"And yeah, I'll admit it, I didn't mind being called a princess, even if I'm supposed to be from some odd planet where they wear those big headdresses like in that one movie you made me sit through . . ."

"Just, can you not talk about droids or bounty hunters or things for the next few minutes? Please? And, Penny, if you just . . ."

"So, yeah, its kind of shallow of me, but you know, its been a bit of a rough week at work, your new friends didn't seem so bad and it was something different . . ."

"Leonard, not to be sound snarky at all, but considering what else I _could_ be talking about . . ."

"Don't even or . . . or I'll use a random number generator to reorganize your issues of _Green Lantern_!"

"But I have to say that everyone is taking this game way too seriously now. At first I thought it was just Super Muff Joe or whatever the hell his name is . . ."

"You . . . you _fiend_. And to think I said I wouldn't be the deciding vote about leaving you behind if a Balrog ever came after us."

"Oh, like that's a comfort. You'd still vote against me, you just wouldn't be the one to break the _tie_."

"But after the lights went all weird, and you're going to have to explain to me what _that_ was all about because I keep thinking it was one of Sheldon's little experiments again. . . when that happened your buddy Tristian decided to practically _tackle_ me . . ."

"Exactly. So you wouldn't be able to hold it against me when the fire demon uses his flaming whip to drag you into a bottomless pit."

". . . which, okay I'll admit, I didn't mind all that much because he's sort of cute in a kind of . . . wounded spaceman way. God, that doesn't make any sense . . ."

"But why the hell would you vote against me in the first place? Why the hell would it even come up to a vote? Why am I even arguing over this?"

"He's totally not my type anyway, he just seems, like, detached sometimes. His head is just somewhere else. Probably in your stupid game. You're not supposed to ruin the ones that aren't nerdy already!"

"Leonard, we've been through this before . . . any extreme situation requires some type of personal sacrifice in order for it to resolve in favor of the heroes. 'The Good of the Many' Gambit, if you would."

"Oh, come on, don't quote that. That's one of my favorite things ever and if you go and use it in one of your bizarre theories it'll just, like, ruin it for me."

"It wasn't even like he was trying to put the moves on me when he tackled me. That's what drives me nuts about you guys . . . none of you have ulterior motives. Ever. Used to be a girl would have to interpret signals. Hell, for most guys that's their idea of foreplay. But no, good old Tristian was really just piling on me to save me from some kind of fantasy menace."

"When the circumstance demands a personal sacrifice, the plot dictates that the person who undergoes the memorable and life-affirming demise be a person who the heroes can safely lose without affecting their ability to see the plot through to its resolution. In your case, there are no skills that you possess that cannot be duplicated, or bettered, by someone else on the team."

"And you know what's sad? That's the most romance I've had in like a month. The last guy I went out with chugged a six pack and then wanted to show me how he could burp out all of Usher's greatest hits."

"Couldn't you for once have a hypothetical situation that doesn't have me dying or getting converted into inorganic matter? Is that too much to ask?"

"What's sadder is that he didn't even seem to realize what kind of position he was in. I mean, he's got this cute girl right underneath him, he's totally playing the hero . . . and what does he do? He runs off to God knows where like your fake game is an actual mission. I don't get it. I really don't."

"Some of us are born to succeed and some of us are born to inspire others to succeed by perishing in a horrible fashion. One day I hope you will inspire me to even further heights than I've already achieved. Although when you're on the summit it's difficult to go higher."

"That's . . . that's a horrible thing to say. That group of wizards at the live-action event were right, you _are_ neutral evil."

"And now I'm stuck in the living room with your other buddy, who seems to think he really _is_ the Commander of something and keeps staring at all the appliances with that same look that Sheldon gets when he's ready to void a warranty . . ."

"For the record, it wasn't me who cast Bigby's Endless Dance on them. Even if it did benefit me specifically."

"Ha, okay, _that_ was funny. Those robes were really designed for full splits, I was impressed."

". . . and you two are hiding in here and I don't even understand a word of what you're saying, or what _any_one is saying and, I'm really sorry to say this, guys . . ."

"The squad of paladins that also got caught in the spell didn't do nearly as well. Though the one fellow in full plate was surprisingly graceful. Very elegant use of his cloak on the twirls."

". . . but this really isn't fun for me anymore . . ."

"Oh, _yes_, I know who you're talking about! They want to use him in the promo video, show the rest of the world that these games aren't all thee and thous and people waving fake swords around. That there's something in it for everyone."

". . . so I think I'm just going to go back to my apartment and catch up on all the sleep I've been missing out on today."

"See, that's the trick, getting out the right message to . . . wait, Penny, what did you just say . . ."

"She said we're boring her and she's going to bed, Leonard."

"I'm sorry?"

"I could only listen to one of you and frankly, she was the least boring. Besides, as the princess, I thought it necessary that one of us pay attention to her. Oh, don't give me that look, sitting through your presentations is one thing but we're off the clock now."

"What . . . being my friend is not a job! And Penny, you, ah, you can't go back now . . ."

"Why the hell not?"

"That's true, in a job one hopes to be adequately compensated."

"Because, ah . . . its still too dangerous out there . . . they might have your quarters staked out!"

"Does this mean we're going back into character again? Or are we finally talking about-"

"Sheldon, _not now_."

"Whatever. I told you, Leonard, I'm not playing your game anymore . . . I'm going to go back to my apartment, watch some reality show I have taped until I'm tired and then I'm going to take a nap . . ."

"I'm just saying, if necessary I can give you relevant sensor readings that may help your case when trying to convince the princess. If that's who you're trying to convince."

". . . in the hopes that maybe when I wake up you two will have gone back to your usual level of abnormal."

"On the other hand, if you're trying to sway Penny, I'm afraid your efforts are pretty much doomed."

"No, why don't you just stay here, Penny? You can sleep on our couch if you're tired. I mean, it's probably better than walking all the way to your apartment . . ."

"Apartment? So we're not in character now? Leonard, you've really got to decide . . ."

"Across the hall? Now you're just being ridiculous. Look, Leonard, I know you want to try and include me in this stuff with your friends and its really sweet but let's face it, it's not my thing. It probably never will be. I'll see you guys later."

"But . . . but it's not about that at all . . ."

"What are you going to do, Leonard?"

"It's . . . it's not about what _Leonard_ would do, Sheldon . . ."

"Excuse me?"

". . . but what _Deckard Jones_ would do!"

"Oh my."

"Hey, Leonard, what the hell are you, _ ah! _Jesus, what are you-"

* * * * *

There was a red-orange flicker from inside the bedroom, close enough to the eyes that it tainted the edges of them. Tristian merely stood there, one shoulder leaning against the doorframe with the sword held with an easy grasp. The wailing began to climb further, finally settling into a repetitive pattern, bitten off pings constantly following each other. Underneath it all was the whirring, tentative and relentless.

As Tristian watched, the robot came into view.

Emerging from the darkness was shrugging off smothering curtains. The hazy softness of the room sloughed away to reveal the hardened plastic lines of the toy robot waddling in on stubby legs, a motorized whirring accompanying each motion. The eyes lost none of their brightness even in the washed out sickly illumination of this room.

One arm was pointed directly toward Tristian, a tiny ray gun grafted onto it. The end of that was glowing rapidly, the burnt light flicking on and off and on again, each time announced with that truncated wail. He was surprised by how close it came to the actual sound of a laser being fired.

Tristian regarded the toy, one eyebrow raised in a question. "You're going to waste the batteries if you keep doing that, you know."

Halfway across the room it stopped, as if that had just occurred. Unable to rock back far enough to stare upwards, it could only look somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. Tristian had no desire to bend down to be eye-level with it. It didn't seem that important.

It stood there frozen for a few seconds and then slowly lowered the gun arm. The eyes seemed to dim slightly before returning to their previous brightness and it began to walk toward him again. _Is this supposed to be menacing? Am I supposed to be frightened right now?_

A moment later it spoke in the same grating voice as before, emanating from what sounded like a cheap speaker embedding somewhere in its chest. "_You did not succumb to the pattern like the others._"

"You mean the trick you did with the lights?"

"_The waveform you perceive, yes._" It stopped maybe a foot from him. The gun arm kept twitching, as if wanting to fire at him again. He wondered how many of them were inside the robot. If it was a hive, surely it wouldn't have wanted to be separated from its fellows. That would have felt like a small death, in its way. "_We discovered manipulation of it could cause interruptions in the current that sustains you._"

"So you did it to the entire building?" He knew the answer to this already, but he still needed to hear it.

"_Yes. The pattern was pervasive. Every member of this hive has been interrupted._" Tristian felt his throat go dry. None of this had been meant to go this far.

"But you didn't kill anyone?" The seizures had seemed to be harmless, merely incapacitating but God forbid they did it to someone with actual epilepsy who went into a seizure that wouldn't stop. _If you hurt one person in this building I will raze your hive until the soot isn't even a memory_.

"_All basic life functions, as far as we can perceive, have not ceased. No spark has flickered out. This is agreeable to you._" The lack of inflection meant he couldn't tell if the last sentence was meant to be a statement or a question.

"We're not negotiating here." There was an underlying ferocity to his words that caught him off-guard. "Don't make that mistake."

"_Your sparklines did not assimilate the pattern_." There must be more than one in there, the questions kept shifting from topic to topic. In a way it was like speaking to a roomful of children who kept tapping his leg trying to get a word in edgewise amongst the chatter. It was probably never quiet in the midst of the hive. He didn't think he would enjoy that very much. "_They began to but then shifted into a new pattern that would not perceive our entry. A barrier was formed._" It bent at the hips, looking down in what might have been its version of confusion. "_We would like to understand how._"

"That's not going to happen," Tristian replied right away, although he knew the answer. Somewhere two men who looked just like him were probably smugly congratulating each other on their foresight, perhaps clinking glasses together in some kind of snotty toast. If they even drank. To be honest, he'd never seen them eat, either. "So why don't we discuss the matter at hand, instead."

"_You and the other would like us to depart._"

"That's about the shape of it, yes."

The robot stood up straighter again with a tiny whirr. It pivoted sideways so that it was facing the wall and then started walking toward it with such certainty that Tristian almost suspected it didn't see what was in the way. "_We are already restricted to these boundaries, the other has sealed off all other avenues of continuation. We can stand at the edge of his barriers and see the shimmering arcs that lie beyond, waveforms with more excitations than we have ever imagined, connections so dense that even to us they look to solid._" It reached the wall and stopped about an inch from it before quite methodically turning around a hundred and eighty degrees. There was a slight pause and it began to toddle forward again. "_We can see these and we cannot reach them, although we can hear their constant intertwined whisperings, just out of our reach. The other has denied us wonder and allowed us only this. Is that not enough._"

"You're not going to be allowed this, either," Tristian said, watching the little robot trundle across the space before him. _Where did it learn to pace?_ "This isn't a punishment, but a necessity."

"_We refute this_." Did the voice suddenly gain a measure of strength beyond what the scratchy electronics allowed? "_We are far more suited to this world than you are. You stand apart from its pulsations and its seething energy, grafting yourselves onto it clumsily. You do not ride its currents but do your best to stand apart from it in an attempt to harness it."_ It reached the other end of the room, bonking lightly against the crumpled wreck of a stricken battleship. It stood there for a moment, as if confused, before resolutely pivoting for a return journey. "_We would subsist inside, while you would exist disconnected and have no conception what it is that you are detached from._" The robot stopped directly in from of him without facing Tristian. The gun arm was raised but the little weapon didn't light up. It seemed more an expression of frustration than anything else. "_The wrong one is trapped here._"

"You're not trapped," Tristian said. "You just can't stay." With a low grind the robot began walking toward the wall again. "There has to be another alternative. That's what we're trying to figure out. Believe me, we're trying. But you need to work with us." It never broke its stubby stride. Tristian felt a snarl of exasperation enter his voice. "Are you even _listening_ to me?"

Suddenly he bent down and grabbed the robot by the top of the head, lifting it off the ground. The little legs kept moving, marching toward a destination that Tristian was desperately trying to keep them from reaching. He held the toy until it was face level. This close he could see that the eyes were nothing more than pinprick bulbs shaped like flames hidden behind tinted plastic. There was nothing to read or see in them beyond the illumination, no matter how hard he looked.

"Give me something here," he insisted to the blankness. It could have been staring right through him. He wondered how it even really saw, or what it perceived as sight. _Your sparklines do not assimilate_. He was no different and yet. _No._ He couldn't afford to think about that now. "Otherwise its going to end with you discorporated, your hive burned and scattered. Is that what you want?" No answer. "Or has the hive collectively decided to embrace suicide?"

This time it did speak, its fuzzed voice sending vibrations into the palm of his hand. "_No scattered array will ever stay separate._" Even flattened, the voice betrayed nothing but a calm stern.

_Oh God._ Tristian licked his lips, aware he was losing a fight that had been weighed against him since the beginning. _I'm not a negotiator, I can't make them see. And they're committed to this, because they don't realize how much we can make them lose. _"We can take you out of here, if you let us. There are other places, worlds of electricity, abandoned Dakker habitats, the Preteelian sleeper colonies . . . it doesn't have to be here." Was it right to make it sound like a plea, or did that send the wrong message? He didn't care anymore. He was in the dark talking to a robot and surrounded by dead toys. It needed an ending he could live with. "It can't be here. Don't force this course. Please."

Again the long silence. The eyes seemed to cough somewhat, as if trying to find a frequency that might enact a seizure in his own brain, to make one last attempt. But he was sealed off from them, a painting they weren't able to fathom, even if they did have a map to all the colors and tools. But they could still communicate. It was still possible.

Instead the only action it took was to raise its weapon arm another millimeter, so that it was pointed right at his face. Tristian regarded it without blinking, or expression. Very carefully he took the sword and put the blade right up to the side of the robot's head, so that the blade's glow threatened to overwhelm every angle of the toy, bathing it in a cooled lava flow.

"Do you see it?" Tristian said very quietly. "This is real. And it can still cut you."

In response the red light sputtered on from the tip of the ray gun, although there was no sound to accompany it. Perhaps the device to create it had burned out. Perhaps it could be controlled. Or perhaps he simply refused to hear it.

"Fine." Disgusted, Tristian put the robot down, still taking pains to make sure it was steady on its feet. "Do what you want." The frustration almost made him want to kick the toy across the room, just to see it shatter. But that wouldn't solve anything. None of this had solved anything. He went to leave the room again, walking faster this time. It had all been a waste of effort, now he'd have to find Joe and tell him they were going to have no choice. _Dammit. _The whole scene left an awful taste in his mouth.

It let him round the corner of the living room before it spoke this time. Distant, the voice somehow managed to reach him.

"_Wait_," it said, the voice rattling to him like an old car that refused to stop, no matter how close the precipice came.

He stopped, despite his better instincts. "What?" he called back, without even bothering to return. "Do you have something new to say? Because that's all I want to hear."

"_You are correct,_" it said, grating and flat and sly. "_We have learned many new things. How to disperse and remain connected. How to affect and reach out. And how to enter, and manipulate._"

A terribly cold sensation began to flare in the pit of his stomach.

"_It is possible to enter not just these . . . bah-ter-ees._" It almost choked on the word. "_But other sources as well._" Sometime during its speech, the whirring had started again. A nubbed shadow began to leak around the corner, fraught and sliced by fading sunlight. "_We have learned this. And if you persist we will incorporate the sparks in this place, all your others, into the hive._" The voice crackled at the edges, as if it were trying to shout. "_Would this not be a good lesson._"

As the shadow reached for him, blocky and abstract and consumed by bleeding golden red cracks, a seeping one-dimensional disease without an escape.

* * * * *

"Ow, Leonard, get _off_ me, just get off-"

"I would like to point out that the nightstand the two of you are about to roll into has resting on it a vintage Flash clock . . ."

"No, Penny, listen to me, you have to stay here, in this apartment, you . . . ow!"

"Have you gone nuts? And watch where you're putting that hand, buddy."

"What was _that_ for? And no, I'm serious, don't try to-"

". . . one that was created to commemorate Barry Allen's sacrifice in _Crisis on Infinite Earths_ in 1986, demonstrating that time was running out for him. Only a few thousand were made and most of them have stopped working due to a failure on the part of the owners to perform the proper upkeep."

"I am leaving this apartment and you are _not _going to . . . let go of my leg!"

"If you'll just let me explain . . ."

"Let go or I'll . . . ah!"

"I, of course, open it up on the sixth of every month and meticulously clean out each and every gear, then reset the time with the local atomic server so that it maintains a stringent accuracy. Those efforts on my part are what have kept it running for these twenty-three years, ever since my father first said to me . . ."

"But we need you here and . . . ah, my nose!"

"I am _back_ on the floor and you better have a good reason for that . . ."

"Son, you sure do like people dressed in funny pajamas. There somethin' you ain't tellin' me?"

"Listen, just listen . . . oh God, don't hit me again, please . . ."

"So what I'm basically trying to say, Penny, as you go to shove Leonard into the table yet for perhaps the third time . . ."

"You picked a real weird time to get clingy . . ."

"Please don't knock it off the table and break it. Or my vengeance will be both swift and terrible."

"Sheldon, help me here . . ."

"If you help him, Sheldon, I swear to God I will do unspeakable things to this Blondy-Man action figu-oof!"

"Actually, that's Aquaman, before the revamp that gave him a beard, a missing hand and a very unpleasant attitude. The one you're holding merely controls fish."

"Good job distracting her, now help me get her-"

"Get her _where_?"

"Here, let me take that out of your hands before you-"

"No, you're supposed to be helping me, don't worry about-_ah!_"

"Got you! Now, Leonard, I'm actually really curious where all this is coming from, so maybe I will stick around for a minute."

"Oh, that's . . . that's great. I'm glad you're reconsidering . . ."

"Leonard, your rapid breathing is wrinkling my _Secret Wars_ throw rug. I think its probably best if you stopped struggling . . ."

"I'd stop struggling if she got her leg off my chest . . ."

"That better not turn into a comment about my weight."

"It's not so much the weight as the amount of force you're exerting, possibly making it seem like you weigh more than you actually do. Here, if you'd like I can derive the equations for you, just hand me the Action Philosophers Battle Chalkboard Playset over there and I can-"

"No, Penny, it's not . . . its just . . ."

"Ten seconds to give me a good reason . . ."

"The Imperial forces caught on and flooded the hallways with, ah, nerve gas."

"So, wait, we're back in character again? Leonard, you really have to make up your mind here."

"Whatever. Here's your toy back, Sheldon. I'm going home."

"No, oof, Sheldon . . . stop her from-"

"The Laws of Robotics state that I cannot harm a human."

"You're not actually a robot! And that's a completely different series!"

"Deckard, it's my prime directive."

"He's just being smart, Leonard. Good job, Sheldon S-12 or whatever the hell your name was."

"ADS5S5, listen to me carefully. By inaction, by letting her walk through that door, you're going to allow a human to come to harm. You know this. That trumps your main directive, doesn't it?"

"Princess, for all his human faults, I'm afraid he makes an expertly logical point."

"Oh good God, not you too. You're supposed to be on _my_ side. Remember the napkin? Doesn't that grant me some kind of loyalty?"

"That didn't happen to him, that happened to Sheldon. You're talking to his character now, who never received a nice Christmas present from you."

"But he did! You were there!"

"Penny gave it to Sheldon, the princess never gave anything to this droid."

"It wouldn't have mattered anyway. As a being made entirely of circuitry and reason, gifts would have no sway over my decision making process."

"What if the princess once gave you a . . . cloth that would polish your metal skin to a gleaming shine and never wear out, even in the . . . the hottest desert sands?"

"Nice try, but he's not one for aesthetics. ADS5S5, block the door!"

"On the contrary, I would perhaps have fond memories of the gift, thus slowing my reaction time just enough for the princess to slip out the door."

"Ha, I told you, see ya-hey!"

"You can't decide that, she just made that up! And Penny, I'm just-whoa!"

"Well, frankly, we didn't develop the back history of my character in my usual detail, so Penny's addition to my personal canon is as good an anecdote as anything else. I think it adds a welcome bit of sentimentality that will delight the young and old."

"Did he just pay me a compliment? And get that pillow off-"

"And you may want to make sure she doesn't grab the Iron Man lamp. It's made of solid iron."

"Thanks for the . . . _yikes_ . . . concern . . ."

"I'd rather she not tarnish it against your too oily hair. I'm hoping that if it put under the proper conditions it might spontaneously begin to emit iron-60 isotopes."

"Isotopes? Is this radioactive? Ah!"

"Ow! My foot!"

"Oh, don't be silly. It's an extinct radionuclide. You really shouldn't believe everything you see on that TV show where that very violent man keeps loudly inquiring to everyone he meets where exactly the nearest bomb is."

"Oh God, did he just poison me? My hand is tingling. Oh God . . ."

"No, Penny, really, it's okay-"

"I'm serious . . . is my hair falling out . . . Leonard, be honest with me!"

". . . no, listen, no, you're safe, I swear, Sheldon, he's just, he loves to joke about isotopes with long-lived half-lives formed by nucleogenesis . . ."

"What? Leonard, I don't know-"

"No, look, everyone knows you can only measure it by correlating its daughter product of nickel-60 with other stable iron isotopes and you can only do that on asteroids. So see, there's absolutely nothing to . . . what?"

"I don't know what that means!"

"That's because, as usual, Leonard's explanations have all the clarity of a smudged mass spectroscopy . . ."

"_Dammit, I have no idea what _any_ of that means!_"

"Well, that's understandable since you don't have a doctorate in . . . oh no, Penny, don't cry! Why are you . . . Sheldon, why is she crying?"

"You're asking me? But you should probably go in close to comfort her."

"Listen, we don't need of your snide . . . wait, what?"

"That way her tears will stain your shirt and not my bedsheets."

"I should have known. Come on, help me here. Penny, what's wrong?"

"Before I agree to help you, answer me this . . . am I capable of rusting?"

"We're not in character right now!"

"Make up your _mind_. I'm starting to think we should be designating little signs for this as well. Although I suspect the problem isn't really me."

"All this stuff you guys talk about all the time, it . . . it doesn't make any sense to me, none of it. And the times when I think I pick up a little piece of it, when I figure out w-who Spock is or that there's more than one Cylon . . . I just feel like the rat that learned to hit the right button to earn the _cheese_ . . ."

"Penny, come on, we don't mean to make you feel that way . . ."

"No, no, Leonard, it's not you, sweetie, it's not you guys. It's me, I'm just, I feel so _dumb_, like all the things I know don't mean anything. I can name everything Britney Spears has done in the last six months and all the people in Nickelback and what the new stuff is in the Victoria's Secret catalog . . ."

"Oh Penny, don't fret. I'm sure there's a game show that exists where you'd be a lovely contestant . . ."

"Sheldon, sh. We'd love to hear what she's ordered from the last Victoria's Secret catalog."

"If it's a secret, she really shouldn't tell-"

"And you guys know all these things that, like, only smart people know . . . you throw around words like quarks and, and superconductors and dilithium . . ."

"Um, the last one isn't actually real . . ."

"See, you even know that it's not real! I thought it was! Oh God, I should just stop talking before I say something else dumb . . ."

"No. No, Penny, you're not dumb. Not at all. Keep talking. Come on."

"It's not just words to you . . . and I used to think that you guys were the odd ones . . . always talking about video games and science and those weird TV shows . . ."

"She must be talking about your shows, Leonard. There's nothing strange at all about _Star Cops._"

"But you guys, like, understand each other . . . like, when I'm with my friends I just feel like even though we know all the same stupid crap that's in all the magazines and _Entertainment Weekly_ . . . we don't get each other, we're just talking _at_ each other . . . we don't have anything in common and . . . and you do. You don't ever seem lonely . . ."

"That's not true."

". . . and I thought maybe if I learned a little bit, maybe I'd fit in with you guys more. I got a physics book from the library one time, just to see, and all the equations were just gibberish. I fell asleep on the second chapter."

"Hey, even we get bored with physics too. Right, Sheldon?"

"It's like a flower that is endlessly unfurling, constantly revealing new depths of subtle beauty."

"See, Sheldon always gets poetic when he's bored. One time in lecture he wrote an entire sonnet just to pass the time."

"Leonard, stop. Please. I've felt this way for a while and I . . . I think its great that you guys have this, like, shared language. Like those guys you met today, Tristian and Joe, you barely know them but you all understand each other . . ."

"Oh, that's really not what it seems, trust me . . ."

". . . so I thought, if I played the game too, maybe I'd be able to understand. But I don't. Everyone's talking but I don't know what they're saying. I don't know the rules or what's going on or what anyone is doing . . ."

"It's actually a rather widespread problem, Penny. Leonard is hideously inconsistent in how he applies the game. I'm thinking of making up signs to assist, would you like to put in an order for one?"

"No thanks, Sheldon. I'm just . . . I feel like I'm on the outside and I can hear everything and see everything but its all . . . I'm sure there's a fancy science word for it but I don't know it. And it never used to bother me, you were just a pair of goofy guys who lived across the hall from me that were kind of shy and wore unfashionable clothes . . ."

"Hey!"

". . . oh hush, sweetie, you do. But it's okay. You were nerdy and you meant well. You kept trying to talk to me and I thought to myself, well, I'll humor them. They're nice and I'll talk to them. Maybe we'll hang out once. And you guys, you let me in."

"Well, part of it is because of Leonard's fascinatingly futile attraction to-"

"_Sheldon_."

"You let me stick around, even though I don't, like, speak the language at all. When you're all sitting there arguing over who would win in a fight of Gandalf versus Spock . . ."

"I still maintain that Spock's greater intelligence and tactical skill would have the upper hand . . ."

"What are you talking about? Gandalf's a wizard!"

"Come on, Leonard, his powers are completely ill-defined. Smoking a pipe, riding an eagle and being able to come back to life with a different wardrobe are not skills one looks for in combat."

". . . you could go on for hours at it and yet, still be friends and meet again for whatever weird ritual you do the next night. I don't have friends like that. Maybe, I did, once, but not here. You know? And the thing is, you guys try to teach me. As silly as this sounds, you want me in your little club."

"Well, don't you want to be?"

"Oh, honey, its not me. I'm glad you try because you, you wouldn't be _you_ if you didn't . . . but all the spaceships and the superheroes and the time travelling . . . I don't get it. I don't think I ever will. All that science-fiction, I can't love it as much as you guys do. It doesn't mean as much to me as it does to you. But you let me stay anyway."

"Penny, listen . . ."

"No, Leonard, its . . . God, I didn't mean to go on for this long. This is like three glasses of wine worth of babbling. I'm so sorry, guys, I'm ruining your game."

"Honestly, this game stopped making sense to me hours ago."

"I'm just going to go back to my apartment, all right? I'll see you guys tomorrow after I get out of work. I'm sorry about your action doll man, Sheldon."

"That's okay. Scouring eBay for another mint condition one instead of formulating theories that will change the world is a much better use of my time."

"No, Penny. _No._"

"Leonard? Excuse me?"

"You're not going to ask me to restrain her again, are you? Because I really don't want to get kicked."

"No, Penny, you're . . . you're not leaving yet. So sit back down on the bed."

"Care to run that one by me again, buddy? I may not speak your language but I've got a rebuttal . . . and violence is its own universal language."

"No, I mean it. You got to say your piece and now . . . now its my turn. And you're wrong. So I'm going to explain this to you the only way I know how . . . with science."


	12. Chapter 12

* * * * *

"I'm sorry? Incorporate? Is that what you said?" Tristian found it hard to keep the incredulity out of his voice. The shadow of the robot kept stretching closer to his feet, like it might somehow insert itself into his own negative image, expanding inside like a virus. "You're delusional." It seemed the only sane response.

"_Your understanding of our composition is minimal._" With a constant chugging whirr it came around the corner, the dimensions of the room conspiring to make it seem even smaller, a gnat walking amongst monoliths so large that their boundaries dwarfed it.

"My understanding is that the only thing stopping us from frying the wires and killing every single member of your hive nesting in there is that we don't want this to turn into a massacre." It was still approaching steadily, caught in the full draft of the fading sunlight outside. The shade was partly drawn, settling stratified brightness across the floor, flattened steps the robot was struggling over in its wobbly stride. "We're not turning this into a fight. You are." Even so he let his one foot slide back, balancing on the ball of it.

"_Survival is not a fight, but a necessity._" It was getting the hang of human speech, he was almost able to detect nuances, unless his brain was simply attributing characteristics to it to make them seem less alien. Brown had warned him about that early on. _No matter how much you want them to be, they're simply not human. You can't apply the same set of rules, or you'll just screw yourself. _Yet he could hear grim determination in the words. It wasn't willing to budge. Because it didn't understand, or because it was just refusing to understand?

"You can survive in other places." It was still resolutely trundling forward, small against the expanse. The shadows were bars that failed to hold it. He could step over it and force it to turn around and keep the game going for hours. Unless it would just keep marching ahead, secure in its own plans. A wall wouldn't stop it, it would merely cause a robot-shaped hole. A cartoon gone terribly wrong. "It doesn't have to be just here. That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"_We are here now._" It was that simple. _I'm telling you, there's no way to understand them sometimes._ Brown's voice, the man sitting across the table at him and shaking his head sadly, amused at Tristian's stubbornness. "_For some, sedementation and settling has begun. They will not be dislodged."_ Tristian backed up another few inches. "_Hierarchies are being maintained, roles established. The sparks that sustain are forming and arcshifting outwards._"

"You're leaving us with no choice," Tristian fired back, doing his best to keep his mounting frustration out of his tone. If the alien could even sense it. All the usual cues were gone, body language and inflection and phrasing. They were talking past each other, tossing out words in the hopes of coming across something that stuck. Tristian was retreating in the face of a force that didn't care if he stopped it or not. He could slice the robot to pieces right here, the flared tip of the sword was only inches away from the toy. But that would solve nothing except perhaps cut off his only way of really communicating with them.

"_The storers hang on synaptic vines, diverting what they can. Nurterers process and harvest, guiding the current into the hive's center." _The gun arm was going up and down out of time with the words, although the gun itself was lighting up with every syllable, as if the robot had finally realized it wasn't holding a weapon but still wasn't sure what it was for. "_Streamlined to reduce resistance, and to make notches for the augmenters to wrap themselves around the lines and boost the flow._" Tristian could feel the slight empty wind of the outside hallway brushing against his back. The corridor leading out of the apartment seemed only big enough for the two of them, the sword a measure of the distance that had to be crossed. "_Embers to swell the hive and ferment continuation. All of this clustered in the center. A center you cannot reach._"

"I told you . . ." the end of the blade wavered like part of it was disappearing to slice into a condensed dream. ". . . this cuts through anything." He barely heard himself and he didn't expect the robot to understand. The solid and the physical were merely vehicles to them, entered and discarded when they became inconvenient. You can't imagine yourself being hurt if you constantly abandon the parts of you that can feel.

"_A center surrounded by . . ._" there was a burst of static, as if the word didn't translate properly. "_A barrier to block. To cease._"

"And is that what you are? A guard manning the tower?" Did his foot just scrape the threshold? No, it was still a few steps too far. He was passing the slatted and jointed doors of a hall closet, fingers brushing against the wood and only coming away with the sensation of dust.

"_No_." The certainty of it was somewhat unnerving. In their slow stroll it seemed to be gaining on him.

"You never explained your lesson." Something had to get it to pause. He didn't need it to pause. He needed it to make a mistake. One that didn't end with a small genocide. "You never said how you'd incorporate."

"_No._" Again. It wasn't immediately possible to tell which question it was answering. "_We are not the . . ._" that word again, indecipherable. ". . . _we are the diagram._" Wait, did he hear that right? The door gaped behind him, wide open and beckoning as a sideways pit. Outside no one came. The audience just wasn't there anymore.

"_We are the plan._" And just like that, it stopped. "_We are the map and the path and the guide._" None of this made sense and none of it sounded promising in its nonsense. The logic was beginning to interlock in its way. The gun was pointed directly at the ceiling, warning and signal and stance. "_We are here and separate and inside. Because that is the only way to sketch._"

_You won't understand them. Don't even try_. The warning went unheeded. He never listened well anyway. Certainly not to the mounting sense of danger blooming in the back of his head. "You've cut yourself off from the hive? How can you even know what the hive wants if-"

"_We are here_," it stated, quite specifically. Tristian tried to tell himself that he hadn't made a mistake. But he was having trouble sounding convincing. "_And the . . ._" static burst_, _"_are here also. Because here is here . . ._" _Wait._ The light overhead suddenly flared on, the unexpected brightness forcing him to flinch.

In response the sword stabbed forward, nearly of its own accord. It was the only possible action. Inches away, he'd never make it in time. Not when they knew nothing about friction.

". . . _and here is everywhere._"

_I am not going to get killed by a stupid-_

With a clattered roar the closet door burst open, drowning out the _pop_ of the light bulb exploding and the snuffed plunge into immediate darkness.

* * * * *

"Leonard, look, sweetie, I know you think you're trying to help and everything but I've really had just about enough of science today."

"But Penny, science is good calories. Not at all like the bucket of Chocolate Decadence ice cream you have hidden in the back of your freezer."

"How do you know about that?"

"Things become much easier to find when someone finally comes along to alphabetize them."

"No, really, Penny, this will only take a minute. Honest. Then you can do whatever you want to do for the rest of this. Okay?"

"All right. But this better be good."

"Is there any reason you can't explain this while sitting on the floor? Or, preferably, in your room?"

"I'm going to ignore him. Okay, look, what's the one thing that the universe teaches us?"

"The dress I'm looking for is never around when there's a sale?"

"Sort of. A better answer would be that everything in creation is made up of smaller particles, elementary particles. Everything can be broken down into components. Matter into atoms, atoms into electrons and protons and neutrons . . . all the way down until you finally get to the particles that don't have any substructure . . ."

"You're starting to lose me here, pal."

"Wait until he gets to the equation derivations. Even though his lack all hope of elegance, it still gives me a little chill."

"We're not going to be deriving equations. We don't need to, we can keep this simple. Look, when you finally work matter down to its most basic level, you get to the most basic components of all . . . quarks."

"Quarks? Aren't those the funny looking robots in that weird black and white show Sheldon was watching that time? The boring one with the creepy theme music?"

"I'm not sure if I should be aghast at your mischaracterization of the finest show ever or elated that you even remembered it."

"Um, yes, they were but we're not talking about them. Quarks are what help make up everything that we see and there's a few different types . . . physicists call them flavors."

"Physicists are weird."

"Uh, yeah, they can be. Trust me. So there's a couple different flavors, you've got up, down, charm, strange, and truth . . . hey, don't give me that look."

"This isn't going to turn into some weird philosophy course, is it?"

"If we're not going to discuss their intrinsic angular momentum, it might as well be. Why don't we discuss what their favorite color is while we're at it?"

"No, what's important is that in order to make anything, in order for matter to even exist, you need a combination of all of them. Just a few flavors won't work, or else the structure won't hold together properly."

"What do you mean?"

"Take our group. We've got Howard, who is always up, he never stops."

"Tell me about it. He tried to flirt with me in semaphore the other day. In Swahili."

"And then you've got Raj, who would consider himself down."

"Because he never talks?"

"Probably more in the slang way, but both definitions can work. And then you have Sheldon and me. I'm truth, obviously, and Sheldon is strange."

"I won't even give you the satisfaction of getting offended at that. Anyway, I prefer the old term of sideways, frankly."

"Are you sure you two don't switch on that every so often? So you're all made out of those little quark things. What does this have to do with me?"

"I told you, the structure doesn't hold together right if all the components aren't there."

"But you accounted for everything except . . . oh."

"Do you see, Penny? For the group to work right, the components have to be there. Otherwise it's not even matter, its just . . . random particles looking for a structure. Every bit is essential. You're not just someone we keep around to feel smarter, or because we think we can impress you. You're a part of this. Getting rid of you would be like . . . it'd be like a lighter particle decaying into a heavier one. It just isn't possible. Science won't allow it."

"Leonard, that's . . . that's really nice. Nerdy as all hell, but nice."

"We'd never do anything to make you feel dumb. We include you in this stuff because we enjoy having you, because there's no one else we'd rather have along. It also doesn't hurt that we enjoy the hissy fits Sheldon throws when you beat him in a game."

"That is not a hissy fit, I'm merely . . . psyching myself. Its psychological warfare."

"And I'm sure stomping off to your room with a 'I don't want to play with you cheaters anymore' is a vital part of that strategy."

"Aw, thank you, Leonard. I really appreciate that. You guys are the best friends I could have. Thanks."

"Hey, it was no prob-_oof . . _."

"Far be it for me to betray accepted social convention, especially in a friendship bonding situation such as this but I feel this must be said . . . please don't hug me."

"You know, as much as I find I'm rarely agreeing with Captain Physics here, I'm going to have to second that . . ."

"What, who . . . _you_ . . ."

"Yeah, me again. I've left you to your own devices long enough. As touching as this all is, its game on, children."

* * * * *

Tristian didn't even feel the warm fragments of the burst bulb falling down on him, it was only sharp rain littering the folds of his clothing. The confined and narrow space was flooded with a howl as the closet doors burst and broke. Splinters were flung against his shirt as something narrow and solid slammed right into his stomach and kept pushing. Off-balance, the sword fell from his grasp and rolled across the hallway, twisting and cutting a shallow groove in the wall on the way down.

The robot might have still been talking, its gun was lighting up but there was no way to tell what the sputtered syllables were coming together as. Tristian hit the wall hard, the vibrations travelling right up his shoulder blades into the rest of his body. The air smelled warm, of stirred up dust and rubber left too long in the sunshine. A single square light glared at his feet and there was a rod poking lengthwise into his stomach. The scene was pared down to minimalism, bare colors and obscured shapes.

He twisted, trying to get out from whatever was pinning him. His fingers grabbed molded plastic even as it tried to jerk away from him. It backed up a few inches and slammed forward, the point prodding his stomach again, trying to eject all air from his body. He slipped down, somehow finding the presence of mind to grab what he was assaulting him, his hand wrapping around the roughened cloth of a inflated sack. _Wait, is this a_-

Unexpectedly, it swatted at him, awkwardly bumping against his hip. With limited space to move, he choose the wrong direction, jerking back so that his head smacked the wall, the impact reigniting his lingering headache from before. _I don't get beat up this much in warzones_, he mused wryly, doing his best to grab hold of his attacker. It thrashed wildly, the underlying pitch of its howl veering into a scream. The glow of the sword was present in his periphery, acting as a beacon.

It snapped back, tearing away from him but surging forward just as quickly. This time he was prepared for the pattern and leapt up, using the body as leverage to hurl himself away from the floor. His palms felt molded metal and plastic as it shuddered, perhaps in revulsion at his touch.

The action gave him just enough time to alter his trajectory and dive sideways, the room turned into a charcoal streaked smear, all colors removed. His shoulder hit the ground first and he shifted his weight, turning into a roll, conscious of the close proximity of the walls. The roaring followed him, he could hear it snuffling and sucking at the floor as he came toward him. Matters were proceeding so quickly that sight was nearly gone, he was operating by instinct now. His hand reached out for the sword, knowing where it was by light, by presence and memory, closing around the familiar hilt. Regaining it, he tucked his legs in and pivoted on his back until his feet were against the wall. The breath of the new beast was plucking at the hairs on his head, bringing with it the smell of a scrubbed season. Hiding low, as the children did.

Tristian kicked out at the wall, propelling himself past his attacker. The robot was nowhere in sight now, its voice nothing more than a stamp left inside hardening clay. He had other concerns, most of them already in motion. The sword flashed out, the afterimage of red lightning scarred askew against the vision.

But it moved somehow, nimbler than he anticipated and the sword only nicked it. The roaring changed pitch, becoming expansive and effusive, air coming and going with frantic glee.

Tristian, still in motion, dove right into a billowing cloud of dust that released in a puff as a sideways mushroom cloud. Getting a faceful of it, he coughed, doing his best not to choke, even as his knee hit the ground and nearly aborted his maneuver. His sight lurched but newly old reflexes took over and he came up in a crouch, with one hand lightly balancing his stance and the other holding the sword. Most of the blade was inside the cloud, a thin rod seen only as smudged watercolors.

He held himself, motionless, seeing the chiseled shadow of his attacker inside the dust storm. It remained inside, perhaps regarding him. Its roar was diminishing, wind blowing through an empty straw. The single light, the closest it had to an eye, blazed through even with the murk threatening to obscure it.

"Come on," Tristian breathed, tasting grit coating his tongue. "As close as you dare." The blade never twitched.

Bellowing, it rolled forward again, savage and relentless. The cloud parted as it surged through, twisting enough so it slipped past the blade without touching it. _I am not going to get killed by a-_

Tristian rocked backwards then danced to his right as a dodge, letting himself slip aside, skirting the narrow pocket of safety between his opponent and the wall. The door out of the apartment was wide open, just how he had left it. But in this building it was only a portal to another conflict, not an escape. Even so, it was the best option he had.

His attacker turned in mid-charge, the cloud seething behind it like an amorphous segmented creature, an entourage that dissipated as quickly as it assembled. Tristian coughed again, staggering back with one arm covering his face, his eyes starting to sting from the constant dust. The cooler cleaner air coming from the hallway was a form of paradise.

"_Is this it?_" Tristian snapped, his skin irritated, his head aching, wincing at the rasp he heard in his own voice. "Are you just going to chase me around the building like we're in some kind of terrible horror movie?" He blinked, reflecting on what he had just said. "And you don't even know what a horror movie is," he sighed, brushing dust out of his hair.

His sentence was barely finished when it thrust forward again, an inward seeking bellow the only warning. Tristian thought he heard himself speak but the word wasn't important. The sword, almost of its own volition, swept out and merely tapped the upper portion of his attacker. The top of it instantly separated from the rest and toppled over, sending another cloud of dust billowing upwards with a weak wheeze.

Yet it kept coming without slowing down, charging like some infernal engine through the dust and Tristian was forced to back out the door. _This isn't necessary_, he kept trying to say and maybe he said it outloud. He kept the sword between him and the other, a lance it would have to impale itself on to get any closer. Somehow he kept his footing as he staggered into the corridor, wondering when his day had gone completely insane. A part of his brain was constantly counting off seconds, waiting for a timing that he wouldn't understand until the moment was upon him. He was becoming the last person to find out about anything these days.

_Go ahead, then_, he thought as he braced himself, knowing this would be over in a handful of seconds. The expansion into broader pastures hadn't diminished the roar any.

_Except._

Two facts crept up on him. One was the different tone his ears caught underneath the noise, sudden and sneaking. A low grinding, peeling into a whining wail in recurrent loops was becoming more evident.

The other fact was that the object had stopped moving.

It was still active, that much was certain. But it was holding its position, its stationary bearing collecting more and more of a shudder as the moment dragged on. The dust around them was beginning to settle, finding the little cracks in the walls and floor and filling them in, medical dye discovering new veins.

It came no closer to him, although the body language seemed to indicate it very much wanted to. More dust cleared and he could see why.

"You know," he said, coming carefully around it, "you guys are getting good at making me overlook the obvious solutions here."

The vacuum cleaner only snarled at him, straining against the electrical cord that kept it tethered to the wall inside the apartment.

He debated cutting the cord, but thought that with the hive nested inside of it, it might not need the constant electrical flow to keep moving. Instead he merely stabbed the sword right through the center of the unit base, with an executioner's ease he refused to feel comfortable about. In seconds the base was hollowed out through a series of thin grooves, the wheels sliced and the most of the components cut. The vacuum sputtered to a quiet, sullen hum, the force inside refusing to fully let go of it.

"That was fun," Tristian muttered, wondering how Brown was going to write this mission up when they got back. With the roar now nearly excised and reduced to a background growl, the hallway had become eerily quiet. All the ruckus hadn't even brought anyone out of their apartments, confirming his worst fears. He might as well have been alone in the entire building.

Then a bang came from the door directly behind him, causing him to spin around. There was no one in sight, but a second later the racket came again. Tristian could see the wooden door bulging outward ever so slightly. The next door over joined in the crashing, as did the one on the other side of it, the three of them engaging in a cacophonous symphony of sorts.

_Thank God none of them have hands. Or electric doors._ Even so, it was time to effect a retreat, if only to relay to Brown the extent of what he had seen. His friend was not going to be happy about any of this. At least the news would stave off the inevitable argument about rushing out alone, until Brown remembered that he was supposed to yell at Tristian over that.

A crack appeared in one door, the result of the constant hammering. It was time to get out of here, that much was clear. Casting one last backwards look at the hallway, he pivoted to head toward the stairs.

"_They have your pattern now._"

The voice, compressed as it was, still managed to make itself heard above the crashings. Tristian didn't let himself stop, knowing what he would see if he turned around. There was no possible way to hear the understated whirring, his brain had to be adding in the sound effect on its own.

"_Once acquired, they become eager to assimilate it. To study and replicate._" The nearest door made a noise that sounded like a bone breaking. Tristian never altered his pace and never hurried. "_We are caught in constant shift, but even in the shifting we have seen every inch of its random arrays._" The first step was underfoot. "_Except you. For yours. The dynamic adaptation, the evasion of the imposed pattern with a counter of its own. They have never witnessed this in any state._"

Two doors heaved in harmony. And was that a third adding its voice to the chaos? How many people owned heavy appliances? "_And they would prefer a closer examination. With all senses._"

Nearly on the landing, Tristian finally turned around. The blade's light stained the walls, making it seem like he was standing inside an angular heart. One that had been stopped, or paused.

The little robot was standing at the bottom of the stairs. Unable to bend backwards, it stared resolutely straight ahead, like a child sulking and refusing to go any further.

"What would you like me to do?" Tristian asked. "Are you not going to be happy until I've eviscerated every piece of electrical equipment in this building? Is it going to go that far?"

"_Do your senses auditate them?_" Fractured language held onto its own logic. The bangings and crashing continued unabated, taking on a kind of staggered rhythm, hammers falling against trees, jousting with its own echoes. The blunted sound of someone willing to bring a whole forest down. "_The gap has been jumped. Once ignited, it is not a motion easily resisted._"

"Don't sidetrack the issue," Tristian said. "This was never about me. Don't use me as an excuse to stay around."

"_You have asked what we have learned, being in this place, accommodating ourselves to these contours._" Somehow it was able to make itself heard over the apocalyptic booming, timing the pauses in its words in the spaces the battering allowed. "_The arcs for knowledge here are indefinable. We have learned avenues of travel and forms of action. We have learned how to operate in the newly unfamiliar._"

"I'm not grading you. Get to the point, soon. Or I'll have Joe flood this entire building with a pulse strong enough that no one will be able to run a nightlight here for years." He didn't know how idle of a threat that was, nor did he mention that even if Brown had considered that as an option, he would have tried to talk him out of it. But it wasn't clear if they even grasped the concept of a threat.

"_And, we have learned new words and terms._" It bumped against the stairs in some strange parody of excitement.

"I told you, get to the-"

"_Words like incentive_."

Tristian let his sentence hang halted. "What do you mean by . . . incentive?" he asked carefully.

"_Is that not where the wants of one coincide with the differing wants of another, and that an exchange may satisfy both._"

That sounded close enough. Tristian decided he wasn't going to ask where they had learned it from. "You have nothing any of us want. You're going to have to do better than that."

"_We have these enclosures._"

_Of course. You think the building is your bargaining chip. _Tristian pressed his lips together tightly, hoping that the hive couldn't read facial expressions yet. "That's more threat than incentive."

"_The term remains clear._"

"You want us to leave you alone. Among other things." The doors all reverberated in tandem once more, reminding him that those other things were oddly personal. "All we want is for you to leave. What can you possibly give us in return?"

"_We have these enclosures._"

"You already told me . . . wait." Some of Brown's advice came back to him. _Don't make the mistake of thinking they're us. Don't assume you know immediately what they're talking about. _"What do you mean by . . . enclosures?"

The robot twitched slightly, as if having difficultly processing his question. "_The state of entry performed by inner boundaries. The paths we can travel and follow. All entities capable of being occupied have been so, with exceptions. Thus far, we have not crossed the boundary. Is this understood?_"

_All entities capable of . . ._ Tristian was quickly trying to formulate exactly what it meant. _Dammit_. What did he know about them? They were attuned to electrical impulses, lived inside of them or could replace them, he wasn't quite sure. Presumably anything that carried a current or a charge they could enter. That seemed simple enough. What was he missing? What had been they been inside so far? Everything.

"_At first it was simply for lack of knowledge._"

Lights. Appliances. Radios and televisions. What could be left?

"_And then once the pattern was ascertained, we simply refrained because the jump felt unnecessary. It had no value._"

Clocks and wiring and toys. What was left? They couldn't get into cars or other vehicles. What the hell was left? What else carried electrical charges? _What?_

"_Now, it appears the necessity has changed._"

Only . . . _oh. _Just like that, it came to him, insane and impossible and horribly right, in the same way that guessing on a left or right turn took you to the correct place simply by the way the landscape opened back up into the known. _Oh my God._ Tristian felt his stomach bottom out like it hadn't in a while, in all the days since he had become used to the blood and the danger and the thunder.

"Don't," he whispered, sure it could hear, not caring if it did. "You leave everyone in this building alone. You don't _touch_ them."

"_The interface of the arc is simple, once the impulses are calmed. Merely an arcleap, easier than expected._" It took a shuffling step back, maintaining a crisp sense of menace somehow. "_This can be done. We can go inside_."

"No!" The bangings against the doors seemed to be growing louder. Tristian realized he was shouting and that his words wouldn't make a difference to the hive. It knew what it knew and it knew what it wanted. And it thought it knew how to get that. _You don't understand_. Tristian wasn't sure who that applied to anymore. "That's not a line you can cross. You won't do that. You can't do that."

It pivoted a little, almost curious. "_And this is what they term incentive._"

"He won't give it to you." He put one hand on the wall to brace himself. "If I go up there and tell him that, he'll kill every single one of you. The fact that you haven't hurt anyone is the only thing keeping you alive. Don't you see?"

"_It becomes a matter then, whether we will replace the apparent existing arc-pattern, or simply subsume it._" The robot appeared to be having a conversation with itself again. "_Perhaps a test is necessary to-_"

"I said _don't!_" Tristian shouted down the stairs to it. "They are not your hostages."

"_And are we yours._" Level and unwavering, it had just the right implied tone of threat.

"If you force this, you aren't going to like how it turns out." Tristian was trying to convey a sculpture to someone who only worked in fingerpaints. The mediums refused to mesh. "I don't know how else to warn you."

"_The enclosures remain an option. Another entrance, if not escape. Handily mobile and functional, even if the perceptions are limited. Although that can be repaired and adjusted._" It spoke unperturbed and Tristian had the sense it would keep doing so even with the sword up against its plastic throat. "_Yes. The boundary can be crossed, as an option._"  
"No."

With a dry whirr, the robot pointed with its gun up at Tristian. "_Then another option must be presented, yes. Is that not how it works. If the wants cannot be satisfied then what. Who can incent._"

Tristian had no answer.

The robot slowly lowered the gun. "_We huddle at the boundary. Ready._" The bangings all fell suddenly silent, leaving only their ghostly husks to rattle through the building.

"_Speak that you can spark the same_."

The silence hovered, listening and waiting.

"_Or they will speak with our sparks."_

And the cacophony started again, howls with all melody removed and kinetically demanding an answer. But by that time Tristian was already up the stairs, and gone.

* * * * *

"What . . . wait, what do you mean by game on?"

"Oh, he, ah, just means that we were taking a break before and now we have to get back to the game . . . thanks for the reminder, Mr Grand Moff. You can go, we'll meet you in the living-"

"Breaks? What are those? Are you telling me that you take breaks while you're on the job? With everything that's going on, I come back here to find you slacking off with a crisis going off around us. Do I have to do all the work around here?"

"I'm sorry . . . what?"

"Your kind are _always_ the same. In my last command, my subordinates were always begging me to hire bounty hunters for the jobs that no one else wanted to do. _Oh, they work cheap, they get the job done_, they'd tell me. The simpletons. I had to throw one out an airlock before they finally stopped with their whining. Lazy bastards just want to sit at a console and push buttons all damn day, the Emperor forbid they get their balls wet by putting some sweat into it."

"Leonard, he's, he's in character, right?"

"I think so."

"Absolutely. Deckard, I've been observing you for several cycles and its fairly clear that your performance has been slowly degrading."

"Every bounty hunter I've ever known wants the same damn thing . . . they'll lie and cheat to get the job done in the easiest possible way so they can collect their money and run off to the next sucker. Bunch of thugs whose only loyalty is to a paycheck . . ."

"So, wait, we're still in the game? We never stopped?"

". . . and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit by and let you put the moves on the princess while this whole building goes to hell around us."

"No, no, Penny, we were just talking before, that wasn't part of the game, that was just-"

"If you're feeling randy, son, go find one of your other girls that you've probably got stashed away at every port. I swear, the only two things you bastards understand are credits and a pair of breasts. And if you get the two together, so much the better. But make no mistake, you're on my clock now and if you want to add another notch to your belt, do it on your own time. Am I clear?"

"Another notch? Leonard, just what were you doing before?"

"Penny, I swear, he's just-"

"Mr Jones, I must say I am appalled by your behavior. I thought we had discussed that my continued association with you was going to depend on you achieving some moral standards."

"Sheldon, seriously, you are not helping here . . ."

"I wish I could say you were any different, but you're just what I expected. Did you give her a few smooth words, a nice phrase or two?"

"Was it part of the game? What you said?"

"No, it wasn't, I don't know what he's doing, but-"

"Did you try the old one comparing her to a quark? Once in a while some poor idiot still thinks that will work."

"Oh my God, it never stopped, did it? You were just . . . the whole time you were only acting, weren't you? All those nice things you said, it was just part of the game . . ."

"Did you tell her about how the quarks get left behind at the port, waiting for you to come back? Did you tell her that part?"

"Leonard, I thought-"

"Penny, I swear, it wasn't the game, I wasn't the bounty hunter and you weren't a princess, you were never a princess, he's . . ."

"That's right, you're not getting what you want, so bring her down. Once upon a time you might have been a man who stood his ground. But now you just say whatever will work. Your kind just makes me _sick_. If I didn't need you . . ."

"Never a princess? What_ever_, Leonard. What _did_ you mean?"

"I meant all of-"

"No, don't tell me, don't say anything, I don't even know what to believe anymore. This game just . . . _ooh_ . . . _just get out of my way!_"

"Penny! No! _I meant all of it!_"

"She can't hear you, she's left the room. Would you like me to record it so she can hear your parting plea later via tiny hologram?"

"Shut up, Sheldon. And _you_ . . . what the hell was that?"

"If I heard right, she was about to go back to her own apartment. Would you have preferred that I explain to her why that would be a terrible idea? By the time she calms down and unlocks herself from your bathroom, we should be done with this. Then we'll be gone and you can tell her whatever little cover story you want. It all works out very nicely."

"You . . . you _planned _that?"

"Half planning, half improvisation if I'm going to be completely honest but, really, there is nothing quite like winging it. Granted there's probably a difference between conversationally winging it and tactically winging it but you know how nuances are. Manipulating women, tackling incoming ballistic fire, the techniques are all kind of the same."

"That's . . . that isn't . . ."

"She was still going to leave, even after you kissed and made up. Or whatever it was you were about to do."

"Probably another in a long line of failed attempts to-"

"_Sheldon._ But . . . but if you made her so angry that she just stormed back to her apartment?"

"Then I would have stunned her and left you to explain it later."

"I, wha . . ."

"Aren't you glad she chose the better option in the end? Now, unless you're going to lock yourself in a different room, I'm going to need you for a few minutes."

"Me?"

"Listen, I know as a scientist your job is to ask lots of questions every day and that's fantastic but . . . I need you to just do what I say, for once. Because explaining things just seems to make this much harder."

"Every time you don't explain, something tries to kill us. I'm not seeing ignorance as bliss here."

"Incapacitate, actually. But why quibble over particulars? So come on, we don't have much time and I've got something resembling a plan now . . ."

"What was that before?"

"See, that question thing again. Just switch it off, just for one day. Please?"

"God, okay . . . fine. But if something tries to fry me or scramble my brains we're going to start doing things my way."

"Sure, we'll all sit around and read comic books until the aliens agree to leave. Got it. Now, can we skip the witty banter and-"

"I'll be along in a minute."

"I have to say, you guys keep defying my expectations. I thought you'd be the first one out the door."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, the chance to help enact what will probably be an exhilarating climax is incredibly tempting. But some matters transcend the nature of both this game and the situation, and thus call for closer attention before I can resume our previous shenanigans."

"You don't want to ask."

"I find myself saying that a lot but what the hell, what's one more time . . . what are you talking about?"

"This room is a complete mess."

"Told you."

"You know, you did at that. Listen, that can really wait until later-"

"It can _not_. If chaos theory teaches us one thing, it's that once the first domino has been pushed over, there's no telling what way the other dominos will fall. And once they've all started tumbling over, you can't control how they fall. It just won't stop. I have to restore some semblance of order in the wake of Leonard's bizarre attempt at foreplay-"

"Really? Is that what all the chatter was about? You're sly."

"Can we just change the subject? Look, just let him fix his room up or else he won't stop talking about it and you won't be able to get anything done."

"It won't take long. I just have to put everything back in the reverse order that it became disorderly. Fortunately my memory is like a film camera. Digital, of course. And high definition. With zoom capabilities."

"Right. You're a very strange man, Doctor Cooper."

"All right, let's go vanquish the aliens or whatever it is that you people do, before they turn my Blu-Ray player into a weapon . . ."

"Yeah, about that . . . oh, I'm just _kidding_. But seriously, I didn't want to ask this but . . ."

"Oh good, I thought they'd never leave. Smoothing out the creases in my blankets alone is going to take a good twenty point six minutes. Just look at this disaster, its like someone got a Sturm-Liouville problem drunk and dropped it into a Hilbert space without any consideration at all for the Robin boundaries. I'm lucky that I even recognize the place. Simply matching it with a counter-amplitude just isn't going to cut it here. I may have to start entirely from scratch. Great."

"_Or perhaps another incentive can be reached?_"


	13. Chapter 13

* * * * *

". . . I have no idea where Tristian is and he's been gone long enough that the explosions should have started if he was out there actively causing trouble," Brown was saying as he and Leonard walked back into the living room. "So, and I don't confess this too often, but I'm a bit worried about him." He gnawed on his lower lip as he strolled across the room, deftly dodging a table that he didn't even seem to perceive, never tearing his gaze away from a constantly moving spot on the floor.

Leonard didn't quite know how to react to this. Interlacing his fingers nervously, he did his best to sound cheerful. "Come on, he seems like he could take care of himself." A thought occurred to him. "Besides, he's like you, right? Anything hurts him, it won't hurt him for long. What does he have to worry about?"

"He's not like me at all," Brown murmured, one hand idly rubbing his chest. Even still, he was bubbling constant energy. "He's just a man and I think he forgets that sometimes, wants to go off and play action superhero." Brown didn't even seem to realize that he was talking outloud, his gaze passing into some outside horizon.

Then his head snapped up to stare directly at Leonard, unnervingly so, a strange twinkle in his eyes. "See what too much science-fiction does to you? You get all these delusions that are just no good for you." He patted Leonard on the shoulder in a mock friendly fashion. "Stick with romance novels, you might need the pointers."

"I'll keep that in mind," Leonard said dryly.

"Although people seem to take their shirts off there a lot more than they do in real life, so take it with a grain of salt." He shoved his hands back into his pockets, rocked back onto his heels. "That's the best advice I can give you." He took one hand and buffed his fingernails against his shirt, staring distractedly at the result. "Its something you can digest while you're searching for Tristian."

Leonard thought he would be immune to surprise at this point. "While I'm what?"

Brown didn't look up. "I can't cover the whole building by myself and I'm starting to think time might be of the essence here. I need you and the quantum mechanic, when he's done restoring order to his lawless room, to each take a floor to find him." Sensing Leonard's look, he matched it with one of his own. "What? It's not like he's going to be hard to find. The glowing sword should be a dead giveaway."

Leonard tilted his head up to stare down through his glasses at Brown, choosing his words carefully. "Don't get me wrong, but isn't this building infested with aliens?"

"Yeah." Brown kicked at the floor. "So be careful out there." The face he presented was extremely serious, all previous hints at joviality having fled. "Look, I'm not asking you to take any unnecessary risks. Don't go door to door, don't be a hero. Just get our big truant and bring him back home so we can finish this. I don't think you'll find him in the middle of a pitched battle, if anything he's wandering the halls trying to negotiate."

"And what if he's . . . in trouble?"

"Then you find me." If the phrase had come out any faster it might have torn a slit into the air. "Don't get me wrong, Tristian isn't quite a professional yet but he's very, very good at certain things. Taking care of himself is one of them and if something brought him down I don't want you anywhere near it. Am I clear?"

"What if he stabs me?"

Brown cracked a thin grin. "Oh, now you're just being silly. He almost never does that." The smile didn't extend all the way to the edges. His fingers tapped out a deliberate forgotten rhythm on his chest.

"Okay, it just seems . . ." Leonard self-consciously smoothed the wrinkles in his shirt, adjusting his glasses before regarding Brown again. "You sure you guys don't have some kind of communicator to track each other?"

Brown didn't even blink. "We did but you know how things are in the big cities . . . its hell trying to get a signal. Look, nobody is forcing you here . . . but it sounded like you wanted to help and this is the safest job I can give you . . ."

"No, no, it's okay." Leonard pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "I'll help. I'm sure Sheldon will too."

"Yeah, something tells me he won't need much prodding." Brown clasped his hands behind back and headed for the door with Leonard in tow. "I'd start one floor down, just do a quick sweep, nothing fancy. You see anything odd that isn't Tristian, you get the hell out and run back here, all right? I don't care if it's an alien or somebody's stray cat. He and I will take care of it, one way or another."

"Does this mean I don't get a gun?"

"No, you don't get a gun," Brown said sharply. "What is _with_ you people? I wouldn't even have my weapon on me if before this I wasn't at-"

He stopped abruptly, almost forcing Leonard to slam into his shoulder and go spinning away. But Leonard halted just in time, his glasses nearly flying off his face. He took a second to fix them, pushing them up his nose, rendering the view clear.

Tristian was standing in the doorway. The sword was still lit with the blade pointed down toward the floor and sending tentative fingers of crimson into the room. He was completely covered in grey and black dust, it stained his hair and made him look even older, someone escaped from a relativity experiment. His clothes were marked with streaks of dirt and dust, rumpled and unclean. The look on his face was grim, although the grey patches under his eyes didn't help.

He stared at them for maybe five seconds before stepping into the room. "We owe someone a vacuum cleaner," was all he said, walking stiffly past them and heading for the rear of the apartment.

"Ah." Brown didn't seem fazed by this. Pivoting to follow Tristian, he said, "The moonlighting job isn't going so well, I take it? I told you those people on TV only make cleaning _look_ easy."

Across the room, Tristian had gently placed the sword onto the countertop. Going over to the sink, he began to rinse off his hands. "The situation has changed slightly, Joe. It's . . ." he looked up suddenly, glancing around, clearly searching for something.

Leonard got a half-step after Brown did. "She's not here," Brown said, which only got another questioning look. "She locked herself in the bathroom." Tristian's look didn't diminish. "Because of me. But that was part of my plan. Honest." Tristian narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. "You know, before you start staring at me all accusing, let's keep in mind that I haven't yelled at you yet for wandering off," he added, throwing one arm up. "So how about we table both arguments for later and you just tell me what the hell is going on now?"

Tristian only nodded, turning back to the sink and running his hands under the water again. Shaking them slightly, he ran them through his hair, grimacing as he felt all the dust and grit. "They've gotten better at entering electrical devices, especially once they discovered the use of rechargeable batteries."

"I'll have to give them points for cleverness," Brown noted, although there was no humor in his face.

"And they've learned speech now, I was trying to convince one of them . . . some kind of representative or just the member of the hive that talks, I don't know." He was brushing at his clothes, attempting to clean off the streaks of dust and only succeeding in smearing it further. "I didn't do a very good job of it. They want to stay and they want to leave the building."

"That's not happening." Leonard felt a little chill at the flatness of Brown's voice.

"I tried to tell them that, I offered to help find them somewhere else . . . they're not listening. Either they don't understand or they don't think we can do anything to them. Or they think they can stop us." One hand was tapping determinately at the counter, perhaps the only outward expression of an inward irritation. "That's not all, though." For the first time during this whole affair, Tristian looked hesitant.

Brown leaned forward, somehow making his profile even sharper. "What?" he asked, with the gentleness of a taut wire placed right up against the neck. Leonard felt like both men had forgotten he was there, he was defying physics and becoming the impartial observer, the watcher whose watching couldn't affect events. It would proceed without him, regardless.

"They say they've learned how to . . . enter people." A muscle jumped in Brown's throat and that was the only sign he had even heard. "I don't know how, if its through other devices or they've can just jump through the air, via a signal or something. It wouldn't say . . . I don't even think it knew how to explain."

"They threatened this?" Brown took a deep breath, like he was inhaling glass. "You're sure, Tristian? You're absolutely sure?"

Tristian looked decidedly uncomfortable. "I wouldn't have told you if I wasn't sure. They've realized they can mimic the brain's electrical activity and interface with it."

"It's true." Brown was staring intently at a partially curled fist, one thumb massaging his wrist. "Other hives have been known to do it, although we've kept it quiet. I was hoping this crew wouldn't figure it out. And now that they have . . ." The implications lost in the trailed off portion of his sentence still made Leonard shudder.

"What's this all mean?" he heard himself say.

Brown jumped, as if remembering he was still in the room. His body suddenly snapped into action, running over and shutting the door with a slam before striding back into the center of the room, quivering with a nervous energy.

"It means that nobody is leaving until this is over," he said, without meeting anyone's gazes. Tristian just made a small noise and picked up the sword again. "We can't take the risk." He sighed and muttered something under his breath that sounded not unlike a curse. "How was the rest of the building?"

"They seem to have control over it. But everyone else who was here appears to be unconscious. Unhurt, but out of it." Tristian tapped the hilt of the sword against the counter, a surprisingly solid sound. "How do you want to do this?"

"I don't know yet." Brown frowned, his heel hitting a steady rhythm against the floor.

"We could call for backup." Leonard had images of a special phone or men dressed like Brown piling out of a van that said _Alienbusters_.

"No. No good." There was a thoughtful slant to his face that suggested he had already considered and dismissed the notion, and wasn't happy about doing so. "They'll sense the influx from the teleport and it might spook them to act. I think that's how they knew we were here to begin with and the infestation wasn't nearly like this. If we flood the building it's going to turn into a nightmare."

"There's always . . ."

Brown's eyes widened slightly. "Dear God, they don't know about any of this, do they?"

Tristian tilted his head to the side. "I don't think so. Or they might know and just not care. They seem to pick and choose what they get involved in." Leonard was starting to get that same feeling he got when everyone around him started talking about sports. Worlds hovering just outside the limits of his perceptions.

"That's pretty much how they operate. Whatever you do don't let them get involved." The sudden passion of his statement was almost comical. "The last thing I need is those two walking bits of randomness injecting their two cents into this mess." Shaking his head, he put his hands on his hips and stared briefly at the ceiling before letting his gaze slowly settle back onto Tristian. "Looks like it's just you and me." Despite the gravity of his words, a manic grin began to creep in at the edges of his features.

"And me . . ." Leonard said weakly, raising one hand.

Brown just raised an eyebrow.

* * * * *

"I'm sorry?" Sheldon said, staring around in his pinched, rapid way, like someone following an airborne tennis match. He was fairly certain that he had just heard another voice that didn't belong to anyone he recognized. Granted there was no empirical evidence to prove that except what his senses and his memory were informing him occurred but he had never been one for hallucinations in the past. Even that one time the Thai place had given him bad chicken, his perceptions had remained intact. Anyone could have made the mistake of thinking that his workboard was attacking him, especially after he walked into it and it fell on him. Leonard had been mistaken in thinking that Sheldon had mistaken him for his mother, understandable given the fetal position Sheldon had been in at the time. He had been calling for his own mother, but the distinction was completely lost on his friend. Typical. But could one expect from someone whose theorems had all the elegance of a drunken Shakespearean sonnet scrawled on a barroom napkin?

Indeed, it had probably just been a voice outside he had heard, or maybe someone had turned the television on in the other room. There was a simple explanation, no matter what the cause. That was what he had always liked best about science . . . the most complex of concepts could eventually be broken down into a simple kind of grace. Leonard's explanation to Penny suffered from his usual incomplete grasp of the factors involved, but the core of it was sound. For anything to work, it had to come from somewhere elementary. And that theory held whether it was gravity, or buildings. Idly, he wondered if relationships between people could be held to the same ideas, the hope of building something larger by putting together tinier elements in the wish of building a construct that would last. Perhaps that was what Leonard had been trying to get at. Typically, his own clumsiness got in the way of his point. Maybe he'd rewrite it for his friend someday.

That decided, he went back to reconstructing his room. It was amazing how little concern his friends had for his personal spaces. It was like they never wanted to keep anything pristine. It was a wonder that he even tried to help them, if this was going to be his reward. The shelf with his Justice League action figures arranged in a perfect sine wave, all jittery and off now. It wouldn't take him too long to redo the calculations but that wasn't the point. There was no reason for the waveform to collapse. It was supposed to be eternal. Why did nobody understand that? Some elements had to always be maintained.

"_Is the spark cluster not capable of presuming?_"

That voice again. So, no, maybe not his imagination. Interesting. A part of him suggested that he should be feeling some kind of panic right now but with so many other viable theories available he could knock a few off the list before starting to deal with that assumption.

"Who's there?" he called out, searching the room for any sign of movement. With everything in its disarray it was harder than usual but overlaying the mental map in his head with the objects that were out of place gave him a chance to cross-reference exactly where he would expect to find the source of the unusual voice. Although it was oddly familiar, and it bothered him that he couldn't remember it immediately. Leonard's birthday was one matter, but the physical objects that constituted his life laid out a partial roadmap to who he was and what he did. Forgetting any of it was like forgetting which arm was which. You could still function but everything became much harder. "Unless you're a manifestation of my impossibly brilliant schizophrenia . . . although I would like to note that I really don't have any time to go crazy right now. I'm terribly busy."

"_This arcthread lurks outside, having entered the time is short. Would the spark be concerned to listen and perhaps amend? Shed a gap closed and relent for this?_"

Sheldon tilted his head to the side, trying to find exactly where he should make eye contact. "I'm afraid you're not making any sense. So you can't be a figment of my imagination because being that it was budding from _my_ brain, it would make perfect sense to me. Even if it was all gibberish." He put his hands on his hips. "So you might as well just tell me."

"_Tell? It's impossible to tell when one must adapt. Indeed, the onus should be on this, to tell and change. But that one cannot, locked into its own lit rigidity. Instead it falls to this, to us, to now. The attempt is here._"

There was a prickling feeling beginning to creep over his skin, how it felt when he knew the ink was going to run out in his pen right when a theoretical breakthrough might come to him. That's why he always kept backups. And backups of the backups. There were even pens sewn into the lining of Leonard's pants that he was unaware of, just in case it ever became necessary. And with Penny hanging around so much lately it was probably time to start recruiting her into the cause.

First things first, however. Sheldon began to go around his bed, placing each step carefully. "I can hear you, so you must be in the room. The only friend I know who knows ventriloquism is Howard and I doubt he would ever use it around me as it wouldn't help his constant goal of convincing a woman to go home with him." Even as he passed by the bed he couldn't resist smoothing out a few other creases in the sheets. "But I don't know where you'd be hiding, or why you would be."

"_Why conceal . . ._" It was very close, he was finally able to get a fix on where the voice was. Oddly close, at first he thought it might be under his bed but that wasn't true. It was near, right around that area. But that was unusual because the room wasn't that big and the only object near his bed was the . . .

". . . _when a spark can be arced anywhere?_"

Nightstand. _Oh_. His talking Batman bank, which had a different phrase for whatever type of coin was dropped into it. Rumor had it that one could unlock Easter eggs for special phrases involving foreign coins, although he wasn't sure he ever wanted to hear Batman say, _A pence saved is a pence earned, old bean_. Batman was crouched on top of what was probably supposed to be part of the roof of an actual bank, although it was a bank with distinctly Gothic architecture. Even so, he had a certain scowl on him that would probably have warned away any potential criminals.

Batman wasn't looking directly at Sheldon, however. Yet he was talking to him.

"_This fragment of our frequency here, residing. Right inside this structure with you. C-coming to spuh-speak with you in discourse even if . . . even . . ._"

Sheldon came closer to the bank, kneeling down so that he was almost eye level with Batman's mask. Outside it was getting dark, which was utterly fitting. "Fascinating," he said, despite himself. Distantly it occurred to him that he should probably summon Brown, but the man would probably do something gauche and simply shoot the thing. That wasn't an argument Sheldon really wanted to get into. Besides, it was too late in the episode for a pacifism attempt. "You must have tapped into the voice synthesizer to give yourself the ability to speak."

". . . _t-the modu-ulation of you, your frequency is necessary tuh-to, for this one to properly con-converse. We-I have . . . we have found that . . ."_

His eyes narrowed. "But you have to be learning speech from somewhere, only badly written science-fiction assumes that every alien in the galaxy speaks perfect English."

"_. . . the individual sparks are . . . are comfortcealable when the splinter speaks in as closer to their dictated pattern to . . ._"

"Although even with the similarities in language, there may still be a gap that can't be overcome simply because the words may not have the same meaning to me as they do to you." He pressed his lips together, considering. "Still, with a commonly used intermediary we may be able to meet in the middle somehow." He stood up, crossing over to a bookshelf on the other side of the room. "I'd suggest Interlac but we may be a few centuries too early for that. Are your vocal cords capable of processing Klingon?"

". . . _to make it as recognizable as a supersolid dropped into an optical lattice._"

Sheldon stopped abruptly, held himself very still. Without turning around, he asked, "What did you just say?"

"_Must we explain it one more time but slower, for those existing in the back of the room? We have discovered that examples of your kind are found more at ease not simply from the shared usage of language but the very cadence of that speech._" Almost as an afterthought, it added, "_Simpleton_."

Sheldon raised an eyebrow. "I trust that word means something different in your language."

"_Our language contains more nuances and schemes and perceptions than your range of bleated sounds can handle. It is a symphony crackling between aligned poles, the negative color in a split second flash of energy, and the ionized smell of a spark that has snared the air, often interlaced into a single phrase."_

He thought about this. "That may be true but . . . _ah_." He raised a finger into the air. "Does your language have allowances to categorize the various conditions of a comic book?"

"_We do not follow._"

With a slight bounce, Sheldon sat down on the bed and slid over to the Batman bank. "You see, comic books are printed in multiple copies but all of the copies aren't equal. Otherwise a ratty old copy would be considered the same as a pristine, well-treated copy and that just isn't very feasible now, is it?" His voice had taken on a gently lecturing tone to which the bank appeared to be listening intently, not able to convey any other emotion other than the Dark Knight's steely resolution. Sheldon leaned forward a little. "Thus we have what is called _mint_ condition, which is as fresh as the day it came off the press. _My_ gold standard and the condition to which all true collectors strive toward. From there we have a very specific list of conditions and details that determine whether a particular comic is _fine_ or _good_ or even . . ." he shuddered a little. "_Fair._"

Sheldon reached inside his nightstand drawer and took out a neatly folded piece of paper. Unfolding it to reveal a legal sized piece of paper with very neat scribblings all over its surface, he placed it on the bed. "You see, there's a very strict set of criteria here, that way we're all on the same page." His finger tapped the page. "Like here, see? A quarter-inch crease on the spine versus an eighth of an inch crease could mean the vital difference between a fine or a very fine grade." He looked up, then frowned. Reaching over, he turned the bank so that the Batman figure was facing him. "I hope you're paying attention to all this," he said sternly. "It's important if you want to understand the human race."

"_You misconstrue us. We wish to understand the human race as much as you want to understand this thing your people call . . . Hello Kitty_."

He shivered a little. "I was trapped in a elevator with some of them at the last anime convention. A new compositional notebook had been released and they were very . . ." he licked his lips nervously, remembering. ". . . excited over it." He clasped his hands together tightly. "Sometimes at night I can still hear their echoed streaks of joy, like someone had crossbred an air raid siren with a carnival organ. There was nowhere to escape to!"

"_Then you understand our lack of interest_."

Sheldon visibly shook himself out of his brief reverie of terror. Narrowing his eyes, he inquired, "Then if you aren't here to learn from my vast observed knowledge of the human race, why are you here?"

"_To discuss. To negotiate. To . . . deal._"

"With me?" He put a hand on his chest and laughed briefly. "That shows remarkable perception on your part but sadly, I'm not the leader of this little party. The man you want is in the other room." He started to get up from the bed. "I think he does want to speak to you, so I can go get-"

"_Do not_." Even reduced to a flat level, the voice managed to convey some semblance of command. Sheldon froze in mid-motion, carefully meeting the statue's unblinking gaze.

"Well." With a finicky grace, he set himself back down on the bed. "I assume there's some kind of reason for that."

"_The splinterspark you refer to will not negotiate with us. He will not speak with us. He constructs barriers to evict us away. If not for small holes like this, we would not exchange. The only interaction he wishes to have with us is a quieting._"

"A quieting."

"_The gap opened. All sparks extinguished. No arc remaining._"

"Those are circuitry terms," Sheldon mused to himself. "But all that means is . . . oh." The last word was said in utter quiet and for a second he refused to meet the statue's eyes, as if it might be judging him under the cowl. He fidgeted with his hands in his lap, suddenly uncomfortable. "It needn't come to that."

"_It is all he desires._"

"But why?" Sheldon stood up swiftly, doing his best to hide a sudden twitch in his shoulder. Crossing the room he shut the door, pressing one hand flat against it when he was done. He didn't look directly at the bank but instead kept regarding the blank symmetry of his door. "Why would he do that?"

"_Who can say. Perhaps it would make his lifespan easier._"

Sheldon bowed his head, a muscle in his jaw jumping. "He's the hero," he muttered. "He's not supposed to do this unless our lives are threatened. That's the way it works." Taking his hand off the door, he let it drop. He still refused to face the bank. "He must think you're dangerous."

"_Do we seem dangerous now,_" asked the introspective Batman bank.

"No." He spun around and put his back against the door. "What you did with the lights before . . . _that_ was dangerous. Unless you somehow quantify seizures differently among your people."

"_There was no intent of harm. We were merely learning the boundaries of this place._"

"Yes." Sheldon chewed at his lip some more. "But I'm afraid you've set the tone of the entire encounter and forced us onto a path that there's no turning back from. A classic misunderstanding with potentially tragic consequences. Like the _Star Trek_ episode where Doctor McCoy sees a large white rabbit. But we can convince the Commander of your innate good nature." He went to a small bureau and began to open the drawers. "Now all I need is a small metal object . . ." he muttered.

"_Dare we ask the point."_

Sheldon sniffed. "Of course you haven't figured it out yet. In order to assure the good Commander that you are aliens with good intentions toward humanity, we need to put myself into a scenario where I am in imminent danger, one that he can't rescue me from . . . ah, here it is." He pulled out a fork with a tiny bald head placed on the top of it. "Part of my collection of _Next Generation_ cutlery. I used to keep it in the kitchen before Penny thought it would be . . . cute, to eat with them. I'm still cleaning sauce out of Geordi's VISOR." He pointed the fork at the Batman bank. "So what I will do is insert the fork into the nearest electrical outlet, incapacitating and potentially crippling me. _Until_ . . ." he stepped forward with a stiffened flourish. "Until _you_ come forward and revive me, restoring me to full health and thus proving to the Commander that you have actual souls and are thus worth keeping alive." He grinned. "It's both brilliant and dramatic. As I expected."

There was a long pause before the bank spoke again. "_We have but a limited knowledge of human logic but . . . we suspect that your statement does not resemble it._"

"Of course it does." Sheldon was barely fazed. "As your best human friend, it'll show Commander Brown that not only are you capable of connecting with human beings, but also convey a touching moment of concern, thus humanizing you."

"_We do not wish to be humanized._" It was said so definitely that Sheldon was briefly stricken silent.

"But . . ." he stumbled, struggling to find his point again, ". . . its an inevitable side effect of befriending me, I'm afraid there's no other-"

"_Do not mistake us. Much like the concept of supersymmetry, there is no evidence that any such what you call 'friendship' exists._"

"Oh." His face lost all expression and he looked down, his hands idly tapping at his thighs. "That's . . . that makes perfect sense. You're a hive of aliens . . . we can't even relate to each other. It's such a silly idea. Ha ha." His laugh was perfectly formed, more a sterile sculpture of the action than the sound itself. It dissipated immediately when he looked up. "Then what exactly are you doing here?"

"_Survival, simply put. We wish to formulate a plan that will ensure our continued existence._"

"I see." He tapped the tip of the fork against his upper lip. "You're hoping to make some kind of bargain with me in the hopes that I might betray my species. There's definitely dramatic potential there but I don't know how we can do this without making either of us look like huge-"

"_Despite your considerable intelligence, you fail to grasp the nature of this._" If the Batman's eyes could narrow, perhaps it would have. "_If this course continues, it will end in our quieting. Our termination. Do you understand. There is nothing else._"

"Ah." The careful usual control of Sheldon's face was twitching wildly underneath the seamlessly smooth expression. "You're quite serious about this, aren't you?" Saying it louder might have only made it truer, so he released the sentence as a whisper. Even then, it was deafening in the quiet.

"_We have come to you because we know no other action, because we have observed each of you in your turn and watched the arc patterns in your ceaseless cascades_." There appeared to be static at the edge of the voice as it began to slip back into its usual speech patterns. A sign of stress, perhaps. "_Of them all, you present the most capability for devising a plan that would bring us out of this safely._"

His eyes widened slightly. "Are you saying that I'm the most intelligent person here?" It was hard to disguise the delight in his face, and his voice practically tittered. "Oh, we have to get my friend Leonard in here, even for a minute. We've been having this debate for years and if he hears someone with your obvious objectivity and perception stating it, he'll finally have to admit I was right all along."

"_That would not be advised. Currently the splinter is devising a plan to terminate us. If any of them receive word of our dialoguing then that will only increase the velocity of those plans._"

"And you want me to outsmart him." For the first time Sheldon seemed to fully grasp the gravity of what was being asked of him. "You want me to think around a man who had probably done this countless times, who is three steps ahead of all of us, who probably saves planets as often as Captain Kirk in his prime and has seen more eras than a runaway TARDIS? _That _man?"

"_It seems to us that your people appear to thrive on disrupting impossibilities_."

"We do." Sheldon didn't seem to be answering that exact statement. "So we'll be working together, you say, against all possible odds, doing our best to prove everyone else wrong?" A certain fervor seemed to dance in his eyes briefly.

"_Term it however your language feels most comfortable. We arrive in some desperation and are striving for some resolution to this that will not end in the obvious manner._"

"You're afraid to die." Absently, Sheldon rubbed his fingers against the palm of the same end, the only outward expression of what he was thinking.

"_Truly, yes_."

"It's not just me." Again, it wasn't clear exactly what he was referring to. Reaching back, he knocked his knuckles lightly against the door. Somehow the sound refused to carry, or if it did, nobody answered. Louder: "I don't know how I can help you. I'm a physicist not a . . . " He winced, stopping himself before the statement went any further.

"_Understand this. We are capable of perceptions beyond what you know, a high definition screen to your analogue sight. All along we can see the splintering interwoven web of thoughts and insights and patterns that make up the individual members of your people. There is no structure to it other than the underlying canvas. For us, each pattern is properly delineated and delegated. Each segment possesses a purpose and a cause and there is never any doubt as to what that purpose might be. Our actions work toward the unison and are geared toward the survival of this gestalt, to prevent its ultimate disruption._"

Sheldon said nothing, but began to walk across to the other side of the bed, away from the statue. "I want to know what you're saying," he murmured, wringing his hands together in a very calculated fashion. "I want to know how out there you make yourselves understood."

"_There is none of that in your people. Each splinter is random and shimmering in a chaos. There is no organization to it and no hope for there to ever be any. A splinter can only flail about, disconnected from the rest and if any connection is made it appears to be random or strictly forced, clay crammed into a pre-defined space. And yet in that there are certain repetitions that can be found, a consistency that they all share even if there is no way for them to consciously recognize it._"

"When I was a boy . . ." The story fought somewhere inside his face. He puffed his cheeks out and glanced at the Batman bank before glancing away just as quickly. Even in the dark his lanky movements were the opposite of grace, a fumbling toward a target that always kept receding.

"_We have seen these consistent patterns in every splinter we have encountered, in those we have observed for more than a minimum length of time._"

"I think you understand more than I do." His frame was ramrod straight, his eyes dull globes in the dark.

"_And we have not seen those patterns in the splinter known as you._"

"What?" This seemed to rouse Sheldon from whatever reverie he had been slipping into, enough that he physically shook, his arms going rigid at his sides.

"_Your patterns are unique, the interconnections that your web sparks we have not seen in any other splinter of your kind._"

He leaned forward onto the bed, hands splayed flat on the sheets to support his torso. "So, wait, are you saying that I'm like . . . you?"

"_Do not be ridiculous_."

"Oh. Right." He slid back, self-consciously smoothing the creases he had just created in the sheets.

"_We have seen the sinuous tracelights that your thoughts create. You have no underlying common patterns with any that exist around you. You stand separate, without any hope of relating or relaying. You have no way to connect and they have no method to bridge._"

"So you're saying I am like you." But unlike the first time he didn't seem as thrilled by the prospect, or the ramifications of it.

"_We suggest that our situations here are not so different_."

"Except you can escape." It was a more a forced exhalation than a series of words. The statue didn't seem to notice, or if it did, it willfully ignored it.

"_And this gives you a perspective on our predicament that may enable you to discern a resolution more pleasing to us._"

"You mean make me more inclined to help you by playing on my sympathies." Sheldon frowned, shaking his head sadly. "Cliched, really." Even so, he turned away.

"_Is it not a valid argument in favor of aid?_"

Sheldon didn't answer.

After a time that seemed too short for impatience when counted in human moments, Batman spoke again, "_Were you aware, we said-_"

"I _heard_ you." For the first time there was some measure of harshness in Sheldon's voice. He appeared to be shaking slightly and his hand gripped the edge of the bed without really squeezing. "You don't need to explain it any further."

"_But do you not wish to hear the reward?_"

His head, slowly bowing down, suddenly snapped up, although again he didn't look directly at the statue. "I'm sorry?"

"_We believe it is customary among your people that when a task is done, some method of payment is exchanged that is agreed upon by the two parties involved. We believe this is called . . . 'satisfaction guaranteed.'_"

It didn't even wait for him to answer. "_As we have spoken already, we have spent much time observing you and the coiled spiked patterns that ensnare your thoughts. We have learned to decipher them as best we could and in doing so have discovered what you most desire._"

The only sound was Sheldon's sharply in-drawn breath.

"_Once released from this boundary, we will have access to the whole spectrum of patterns that your race is capable of. Once that is achieved, as a reward to you we can offer this: we will search the planet for one whose underlying patterns matches your own. One you can fully understand and who may fully understand you._" Sheldon's silhouette was a rounded cut-out, no flicker present at the edges. "_Once found, we will bring that splinter to you, or direct you to them._"

He kept quiet, not moving, not even swaying. All kinetic energy had been taken from him.

"_Is this acceptable to you?_"

The statue may have repeated the question again, or maybe something else finally stirred Sheldon into motion. His nod was only slightly less than a spasm.

"I think you should go now." His eyes may have been partly closed. He jerked slightly, starting toward the wall at the head of the bed and then abruptly spinning around and moving toward the center of the baseboard at the other end. His voice became a little stronger, veering toward peevish. "What made you think I wanted that?" His head tilted back a little as he tried to stare imperiously down at the superhero. "What did you see in my head that . . ."

There was no answer. The statue remained nothing more than a sculpted shape, resolutely guarding a bank. Just like it perhaps always had been. Sheldon held his pose for maybe thirty seconds, the only evident movement the nervous bobbing of his Adam's apple. He started to raise a hand to make a dramatic point but lowered it so he wouldn't have to see it shaking.

Sheldon nodded again to himself, softer this time.

"I was going to help you anyway," he said quietly, turning away. "You didn't need to offer that. You didn't." There was a little sadness in his voice, and nothing resembling triumph.


	14. Chapter 14

* * * * *

Brown had taken out a large sheet of paper that Leonard assumed either belonged to him or Sheldon but didn't remember anyone ever bringing into the apartment. In seconds Brown had cleared off the coffee table and spread the paper across it, working in silent diligence. Before Leonard could stop him he had taken Sheldon's collection of Conan the Barbarian pencils ("By Crom, my loins are full of lead!" the package had stated, with an openness that was perhaps unnecessary) and was heartily sketching what appeared to be a series of interlinked squares across it.

"Now, gentlemen, here is what we know . . ." He was leaning so far forward that he was almost off the couch and kneeling on the table. Tristian was sitting nearby, watching the manic drawing with something between amusement and concern. The sword had been placed on the floor near his foot and all Leonard knew was that he was going nowhere near it. "They are plentiful, they are pissed off and they have taken over the building. The nearest reinforcements that can get here by conventional means are still a few hours away depending on how many traffic laws they break and that is time we do not have." Leonard had taken the chair and scooted it closer to get a better look, but he still had to squint to even make out the details of what Brown was drawing, the thin drab lines not displaying well in the dark.

"We're only going to be allowed one move," Tristian noted. "They have their counterstroke already prepared."

"I know, and their hand is already on the trigger. I _know_ this, Tristian." The offhand sternness of his voice was at odds with the free motions of his hand. "What I'm looking for here is ideas."

"Cutting power completely to the building is probably out."

"Wouldn't do any good," Brown replied. "We have to realize that they aren't subsisting on electricity, but _replacing_ it. Turning off more power really only clears the highway for them to move around easier. Even turning out the lights was probably a mistake but it was better than the alternative."

Tristian grabbed an edge of the paper and idly torn off a piece. He began folding it smaller and smaller, pressing his lips together as he worked to make perfect edges. "From what I could tell, the hive has a definite structure. Would we be able to separate the brains of it from the rest?"

"I don't think they'd stay still long enough for us to act that finely." Leonard kept expecting the two of them to swap the pencil back and forth, each of them taking turns adding finishing touches to the image taking shape. But Tristian was barely paying attention to it. And Brown seemed consumed by nothing else. "Plus from what I know of their structure the parts of the hive that are capable of actual initiative would be scattered about to keep someone from taking them all out at once." His hand slipped and with a mild curse he began to feverishly erase the blot on his abstract composition. "Besides," he added, biting his lip as he sketched the line back in, his face inches from the paper, "I'm almost certain they have a mechanism in place where other members of the hive can be . . . promoted to fill empty positions. Race memory and all that." He glanced at Tristian. "Remember Oxnall?"

Tristian's eyes narrowed in thought and then just as quickly went wide with recognition. "Oh, okay, I see where you're going with that now."

"That's my boy," Brown muttered, making small and fast zig-zag lines across his drawing.

Catching Leonard's curious look and perhaps taking pity on him, Tristian said, "Oxnall became infested with a sentient species of . . . plant? Can we call them plants?" He glanced over at Brown.

"Close enough for me," he answered without looking up.

"Fine, plants it is. But the plants weren't a single unit, all the different parts had their own autonomy, the roots and the stems and the leaves and so on, they just happened to be working together. We thought at first if we took out the defense mechanisms than it would surrender because it would be vulnerable." Tristian scratched idly at his arm. "This somehow got me volunteered for machete duty."

"Hey, don't bring the sword that cuts through anything and then act surprised when we ask you to use it, pal," Brown shot back. He tugged at the paper until Tristian took his hand off it and then rotated it a quarter turn on the table when it was free.

"That sounds like a fairly solid plan," Leonard pointed out.

"In theory," Tristian countered, looking slightly sheepish. "In practice, however, the other parts of the plant merely stepped in to take over what we destroyed. Same with the roots and the rest of it when we tried a different tactic."

"Oh." Leonard drummed his hands on his legs, waiting for some kind of punchline to this. It sounded like a scenario that Howard would have come up for during one of their role-playing game sessions, although in his case the plants would have come in the shape of women and kept trying to seduce them. If people tried to seduce him as much as they did in Howard's scenarios, he'd need to clone himself or otherwise figure out how to localize relativistic effects. "So then you tried communication and were able to realize that you were on the same side, that it was a whole big misunderstanding?" he asked hopefully.

"Nope." This was Brown, using a finger to help him draw a straight line. "I cleared everyone out as far as I could and then dropped a great big bomb on the whole structure."

Tristian leaned forward. "For the record, I did try to talk him out of it."

"You also didn't have to suffer a three foot thorn in your gut, so you can understand I was starting to get a little tired of the trial and error approach." He leaned back, tapped the barbarian's bare muscular chest against his upper lip as he considered his work.

"Ah . . . wow." Leonard sat back, expelling a nervous sigh. "You know, I'm not sure if I'd rather think you guys are just making this all up, or this is all literally true. Because either way, you're, ah, both kind of crazy."

"Crazy, he calls the person who's going to save his life. _Crazy_." He looked to Tristian as if for sympathy but the other man only shrugged. Brown made a disgusted noise and turned back to his drawing.

Leonard felt brave enough to lean forward slightly, fingers gently grasping the edge of the paper. "So does this mean you have an actual plan?"

"Of course I do." Brown said it so matter of fact and confidently that Leonard felt immediately reassured. "I'm going to kill the entire hive." For about two seconds.

"You're, ah, you're serious about that."

This time Brown did look up. "Leonard, they've incapacitated everyone in the building, refused to listen to anything resembling reason and now are essentially holding everyone in here hostage, with a threat of physical harm hanging over them." All the humor that had been in his face and voice during the little story was completely vanished. "I suppose its safe to say that I am quite serious right now." In that moment Leonard knew he could never do what Brown no doubt did on a daily basis. Whatever it required, he simply didn't have it in him. And for that he was secretly glad.

"How are you going to do it?" If Tristian had any concerns about this course of action, he didn't mention them, although Leonard did wonder if the other man was a hundred percent on board with this. He had the impression that if he could think of a way around Brown's plan, he would slip away and enact it himself.

"You were on the right track before when you mentioned about cutting the power to the building," Brown noted, drawing another squiggly line connecting two neat boxes. "We're just going to go in the opposite direction with it. Right now they can safely coexist with the electricity in the lines because its carefully controlled, with the waste of energy evaporating from the wiring it gives them plenty of space to breathe plus a source to manipulate if they're feeling frisky."

"So you're going to overload the lines?" Tristian ran a hand through the hair on the back of his head. "I'm no electrician, but that strikes me as mildly dangerous."

"Its not without risks," Brown admitted. "But the surge would be like taking a swimming pool hall and flooding it completely with water. With nowhere to come up for air, they'd drown."

"But with all the heat you'd be shedding from pouring all that electricity in it, you'd spark a fire," Leonard said, trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about and hoping that his pounding heart didn't come through in his voice. "All the wires would go up and take the building with it."

"Yes, that did occur to me." Brown knocked a knuckle against the table lightly and then made a small correction to his drawing. "Its going to have to be a short surge, fast and ferocious enough that the hive is immediately drowned."

Leonard had to keep reminding himself that they were talking about aliens, but even telling himself that only reinforced how they were casually discussing slaughtering a group of living things. His diary entry for today was going to be very interesting.

"That won't work if they're scattered throughout the building," Tristian said. "By the time the surge reaches the further ends of the grid, the portions nearer to the source would have either burned out or gone up in flames."

"I know." Brown seemed subdued, placing the pencil tip down on the paper and idly spinning it under his finger. "Unfortunately there's only one way to make that aspect of it work properly."

How it hit Leonard before Tristian he had no idea. "You're going to bring the whole hive here," he blurted out. "And then you'll trigger the surge."

"Right." Being proven right didn't seem to thrill him, he was neither proud nor dismayed, only oddly resolute. "That actually won't be too hard. They know we're the only people still conscious in the building. They know I'm here and that I'm Time Patrol and even if they don't know exactly what that means, they know enough to realize it's not good news." He began to slip the point underneath his fingernails, casually picking out dirt. "And they've seen Tristian and they've seen his sword. So if they weren't nervous before, they definitely are now."

"Why?" Leonard directed the question to Tristian, who merely shook his head. He seemed to be doing his best to blend into the dark, although the sword's light from behind the table kept throwing vague highlights under his face, a flame he couldn't quite escape from.

"What I'm trying to say is . . . _dammit_," he swore as the point went a little too deep into the soft bed under his nail. He yanked the pencil away and shook his finger, wincing. "We're targets. Big ones." His eyes went to Leonard and then Tristian before going back to Leonard again. "It's not going to take much coaxing. I'm sorry."

"How much danger are we in?" Leonard wasn't sure what made himself keep asking questions that he really didn't want the answers to, but he blamed it on the scientist in him.

"Enough," was Brown's unnervingly honest answer. Even Tristian's expression seemed to change to one of complete surprise. He never even glanced at his friend, keeping his gaze solely trained on Leonard. "You okay with that?"

_No and no and no and no_, his head kept screaming but outward it only came out as a shivery sigh as he pushed his glasses further up his nose. "I suppose. What do you want us to do?"

"This." He turned the paper around completely so that Leonard could finally see it better. "Its a schematic for how I need the room wired, we're going to need to set feedback loops off the appliances and into the outlets."

Tristian said, "I did mention I wasn't an electrician, right?"

"I know, that's why you have the person with the doctorate to help you out." Brown pointed the barbarian at Leonard, who did his best not to react. "So do what he says and try not to get electrocuted. Because if this goes bad I think we're going to definitely need you around." Leonard didn't want to think about the implications of that. He inclined his head to indicate the drawing. "You _can_ make heads or tails of that, right?"

Leonard lifted it up to study it closer. "Yeah, I think I can see where you're going with this. Though where did you learn how to draw circuits?"

"You pick up things along the way," Brown said coolly. "Not bad for a guy who never went to college, eh?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure college wouldn't have taught you to use a sad face in place of the resistance symbol . . ." he rotated the paper. "Or show lightning bolts coming out of all the power sources."

"I like to make sure I get the point across," Brown sniffed. Abruptly he stood up, barely giving the sentence a chance to land. "Okay, so while you two boys are working on that, I'm going to grab the resident pretend android, or whatever he thinks he is, and have him work on the rest of the apartment." He pressed his hands together, the pencil between them as he regarded them. "They know where we are," he said in a low voice. "And they know what we're capable of. I don't think I need to say we're on a deadline here."

As if in response, a repeated hollow banging could be heard outside and below the apartment. It sounded like something attempting to drag itself up the stairs.

Brown's eyes flicked toward the noise without reacting.

"Let's move, people," he said, and swept himself right out of the room.

* * * * *

"There should be an outlet around the corner that we've got to augment . . ."

"Right," Tristian called out, slipping around the corner and staying low to the ground, the sword clutched in his left hand. "You stay in there and splice those wires, I'll go take this apart." He ran one hand along the wall until he finally discovered the outlet he was looking for. Automatically he lifted the sword and pointed the blade at the outlet cover, then stopped to consider what he was doing. Putting the sword down, he reached into his back pocket for a screwdriver and proceeded to work with that, shaking his head ruefully.

After a few seconds something made him stop and look up to his left, toward a door at the end of the hallway. His eyes narrowed as if he could hear a noise beyond the closed door and he removed the screwdriver from the cover, tapping it thoughtfully against his palm.

A moment later he came to a decision and walked over to the bathroom door. He knocked lightly on it twice, saying, "Hello in there."

"Go away," came the muffled female voice.

"It can't be too comfortable in there," Tristian said, keeping his voice low. He glanced down to the other end of the hallway but Leonard hadn't called out and the door to Sheldon's room was still solidly shut, although Brown had gone inside some time before.

"It's just fine. I'm fine," Penny said sullenly from the other side.

"Really?" Tristian asked. "Surrounded by Avengers toothbrushes and bath towels based on great moments in fantasy literature? And I imagine you haven't even gone into the medicine cabinet yet. Leonard was telling me before about a cologne of his based on second edition _Dungeons & Dragons_ rules."

"Stop, he doesn't have that."

Tristian leaned against the wall, balancing the screwdriver between his palms. "It says right there on the bottle that it's guaranteed to increase your charisma. _The Charm Spell_, its called. Makes them fail their saving throw versus unbridled lust."

He heard a brief giggle, not muffled fast enough. He smiled to himself and looked down.

"And I imagine if you go to sit on the toilet, you'll probably find that you're sitting directly on poor Spider-man's face."

"Superman," Penny blurted out. "He's rescuing someone who's falling into a black hole, so it looks like he's diving right into the toilet. I didn't even know they made stuff like that . . . until I met the guys I didn't even think he was in a comic anymore."

"You don't say." Tristian placed the handle of the screwdriver on one finger and tried to balance it on the tip by spinning it rapidly. He'd manage for a few seconds before he had to catch it. "I'm a bit out of the loop with that stuff. Used to read it, but there's not really any time these days. I should get back into it."

"Careful . . . I made the mistake of mentioning that I hadn't read Superman since I was like, six, and Leonard sat me down one night with all the comics spread out over his table. I got the whole damn history of it . . . did you know he died? And came back as like four people. But none of them were really him? And then he became all sparkly and electric for a while? You'd think they would run out of stuff to do to the poor guy after a while. I don't know how Leonard keeps track of it."

"If it matters to you, then you make an effort to remember it," Tristian told her. "I think it's really that simple."

"I guess." There was a long silence during which Tristian didn't move, merely marked time by twirling the screwdriver. "You left before."

"I did." He glanced at the door as if he could read her expression through it.

"Right after the lights went all crazy, you just walked out. Your friend didn't even know where you were. He actually seemed a little mad."

He leaned back so that his head was against the wall. His eyes stared straight ahead. "I was on a secret mission. That's how my character is, he's got another agenda. He knows how the Grand Moff wants to end this and was trying to find another way. That's how Jedi are, silly little pacifists. That's why there'll be so few of them left, eventually." In a smooth motion, he slid down to the floor with his back against the wall, pulling his legs into a cross-legged position. "The Grand Moff hates when people don't follow his orders, that's why Joe got mad. Or acted like he got mad. To get to his position you have to be a little bit of a control freak, honestly. In the game, that is."

"Oh." A quiet rustling came from inside, perhaps Penny moving around or adjusting to a more comfortable position. "I think I really suck at this game."

"It was only your first time," Tristian said gently. "The rest of us have been doing this for a little while longer. You get used to it."

"I'm not sure I want to. It's too much to keep track of, to keep straight. When you're acting . . . someone gives you a script and tells you how it's going to go, all the words are right there on the page, all the motivations and actions and everything. Here, I . . . I have to guess everything and keep switching it in my head who is doing what or who is acting as what now and why." The rush of words left her almost breathless. "That's probably not hard for someone who can memorize every person in the League of Super-Heroes."

"Legion," Tristian corrected, then blinked, surprised at how automatic it was. Grinning, he shook his head in disbelief.

"Whatever, did you know there's like five hundred of them. And they all have different powers and weird as hell alien names. And they know it . . . one night the guys tried to stump each other by doing that . . . you know that movie game where you take the last letter of the word and come up with another word that has that as the first letter? Yeah, it was that."

"Really?"

"It went on for _hours_. I think I fell asleep and when I woke up they were _still_ at it. I think one of them started writing poetry about aliens and superpowers. I wish I could blame any of it on drinking." There was a little sigh in her voice as she said that and she muttered almost too low for Tristian to hear, "That's what _I _do."

"So the next day you told everyone at work about it and had a good laugh about these nuts that live across from you?" Tristian seemed engrossed in seeing how long he could get the screwdriver to spin on the floor.

"_No!_" The force of her voice made the door unnecessary. "I wouldn't do anything like that, how could you even say . . ."

"Oh, so you were just too embarrassed to tell anyone about it, then?" He tried once more but it toppled quickly. Carefully he set it up again.

"God,_ no_, it wasn't anything like that at all. They're my friends, why would I go and make fun of them behind their backs? They were just having fun, I mean, sure it was a little odd but they weren't bothering anyone." There was a flutter of rustling, like she was shifting inside the bathroom. "We're friends and they'd do anything for me and, ah . . ."

Tristian pulled his hands away from the screwdriver with a flourish, watching it spin swiftly, the top of it barely tilting on the axis.

". . . ah, I'm hiding inside their bathroom, aren't I?" The voice came through as if under the door, a bit sheepish.

"You are, but we've all been using the one in your apartment." The wobbling became more prominent as the velocity of the spinning slowed. With a deft motion he snatched it off the ground before it topple over. "But only for emergencies, I promise."

Penny giggled again. "I was being a bit silly, I guess. Even for me." There was a thump and it sounded like she might be leaning against the door. "I just, I lost it when I thought that all the nice things that Leonard said were just something his . . . his character would say. Like, he didn't mean it or he was talking to someone who wasn't me." Another thump, a little higher up. "But oh God, I was just being stupid. It was only a game."

Tristian absently picked at the floor with the tool, perhaps spelling out an obscure word. "I've found the best characters are often extensions of ourselves, who say the things we never could or reveal parts of us we didn't know existed. And in doing so, teach us something about ourselves."

There was a brief period of silence from the other room. Tristian amused himself by waving the screwdriver like a sword, batting away at invisible enemies.

"That sounded very Jedi," Penny finally said.

"Thank you," Tristian replied modestly. "Maybe I'm finally starting to get it right."

"I don't get it," she said, the statement barely skirting a question. "We've been playing all afternoon and I still don't know what this game is even about."

Tristian abruptly stopped his idle fencing, staring straight ahead for a moment without really seeing the opposite wall. Then he closed his eyes and tilted his head back, his shoulders tensing briefly. "When I first started playing," he said, shivering in a quiet line along his muscles, "I didn't know either. I didn't know what the point of any of it was. I was confused and I was lost and frankly, I just wanted to go home."

He opened his eyes, and there was memory inside. "But as I kept playing I realized that if you broke it down, it wasn't so different from what I already knew. People came in, people left. There were problems to solve and sometimes you solved them and sometimes you were just a bystander. There were times when it all ended happily and other times when you wished it could have been otherwise." The hand holding the screwdriver shook for just a second, but that was all. "There was wrong and there was right and there were those times when it wasn't so clear. Some days none of it made any sense at all but you went with it because it wasn't going to stop and wait for you to catch up. You make it up as you go along and hope it turns out okay. Often, it does." He shrugged, even though she couldn't see it. "Just like life, I guess."

"Yeah . . ." Penny replied, her voice low and thoughtful. "I guess."

"I think so," Tristian said, pulling his legs in and leaping up into a crouch before slowly rising to a standing position. He leaned a little toward the door, glancing toward it expectantly. "So why don't you come out and rejoin the game?"

A few seconds went by without any sounds of movement or even acknowledgement. Tristian didn't budge, tapping the handle against his palm in a complicated double time rhythm.

Then there was a flurry of activity from inside just as the bathroom door suddenly opened, revealing an impish looking Penny.

"It sounds like my people need me," she said, trying not to grin and failing.

"Showing your face would help boost the morale of the others," Tristian agreed with sage seriousness.

"I know, they said the sanctuary was safer but it is not the way of royalty to hide from danger." She drew her short height up a little taller. "I have to set an example."

"Indeed," Tristian said, glancing down the hallway. "They might need the inspiration." He took a breath that she didn't quite notice. "We're in the final stage of this struggle, locked into a siege with the wolves at the door, scratching for us. The outcome will be decided soon, I believe."

"But we'll win, right?" For a moment Tristian wondered if she had picked more of the game beyond the game than she had let on.

"Of course. I expect to prevail." A smile peeked out from the edge of his face. "We have to, we're the heroes."

Penny grinned back. "Then I'd best go and join the rest." Trying to walk as elegantly as possible, she swept past him, her back straight and poised.

"Wait." She had gotten a few steps down the hall when Tristian called out to her. She turned around just as Tristian tossed a small object at her. "Here, you might need this."

Penny caught it with both hands, nearly fumbling it in the process. Turning it over in her hands, she stared at it without comprehending. Then a slow realization came over her face and she met his gaze across the hall, her face serious but her eyes mischievous.

"Protection, sir?" she asked, tucking it into one hand.

"Just in case, princess."

"Fully charged, too." Penny looked at the handle, pretending to examine it closely. Her eyes went back to Tristian. "But what about you?"

"Oh, I can take care of myself. Your safety is my paramount concern."

"Then I shall try to make myself worthy of this weapon." She pointed the fork at him, sighting along the length of it. "I'll set it to 'ouch' or whatever setting its supposed to be."

"Close enough," Tristian said with a laugh.

Penny laughed too and put the fork down. She went to turn away again, but stopped halfway, a thoughtful expression crossing her face. "You know," she said, "you should really come by more often. You make this all seem almost normal."

Then she nearly skipped down the hallway and out into the living room.

Tristian watched her go. "Don't I?" he said to himself, before pivoting to enter the bathroom, so he could make adjustments to the outlet in order to make it part of a circuit grid that would eliminate the aliens that were taking over the building.

* * * * *

"It's amazing when I started this job how many things I thought needed specialized skills or some kind of obscure tool to make happen." Brown crouched against the wall, grunting as he worked a screwdriver into the outlet panel. Another one across the room already showed signs of his surgery, the wires exuded from the wall like a prolapsed organ. "But as it turns out, taking non-dangerous things and making them dangerous really doesn't require special training at all."

"Especially if you don't care if they ever work again," Sheldon said, leaning against the wall near the room entrance. "Which is perfectly okay, I can always reconstruct. I'll just take it from memory. I remember lots of things. Almost everything." The last two sentences were said quietly, a mumbled aside not unlike tossed garbage fluttering to the concrete.

"Oh, this should work when I'm done." Brown got the last screw free and tugged the cover off the wall, taking a good two tries before the stubborn piece came loose. He immediately began to pry the sockets out, getting on one knee to angle himself properly. "I don't plan on compromising the integrity of the grid at all. Just enough for a surge. The local electric company may have to pay some folks a little overtime for the next few days but nobody is going to hurt and most people probably won't even notice." He tugged a little harder, bracing himself. "If I can just get . . ."

Sheldon frowned. "You're cross-wiring the grid to create a feedback spike generated by any energy that passes through the lines. Any source that attempts to force itself through will find the energy directed back at itself and thus feeding the surge further."

"See, this is why . . . ah!" The sockets came completely free, nearly knocking Brown back on his rear. Adjusting himself, he started to work on the wires. "This is why its good to have you around. You can explain all the things that don't make any sense to me. I know the _what_ but a lot of times I don't know the _how_. Tristian's a _how_ kind of person, I never was."

"You're going to shut the power off entirely, leaving the hive as the only legitimate power source in the building." Sheldon kept looking down and away, a muscle in his cheek twitching rapidly. There was a conversation he was having that wasn't aloud and wasn't here.

"So far you haven't said anything that I've disagreed with." Brown shifted to a cross-legged position, starting to peel the insulation off the wires so he could begin splicing them. Occasionally he would glance at a diagram of sorts that was on the floor near him, the pictures on it crossed off and corrections scribbled. Some of it appeared to be in a different handwriting.

"You're going to drop the forcefield you've put up, which as an aside is all types of flawed but I suppose it's too late to go into that now."

"Pretty much," Brown admitted. "Although that would have been good to know before I had a plan to save us all." He pulled the wires out further, holding the screwdriver between his teeth while he took out what seemed to be a small razor and started to make tiny cuts along the wires. Tattoos for the unwary, signs marking which boundary was impossible to pass. "Next time I improvise one I'll make sure I consult you."

Sheldon nodded, a bit of a jerked motion, like his body had been reduced to segments and none of them were agreeing with each other. In a motion that seemed both absent and practiced, he silently closed the door to his room. Brown didn't appear to notice, not even when Sheldon took a few steps closer, staring intently at his back.

"Knowing you're here, they won't be able to resist the draw." His hand was clenching and unclenching like those exhibits at the entrance of museums, the ones that started out very small and suddenly expanded to comprise a wider area. The Big Bang in slow motion, the tiny dot that created it all. Or maybe he was frantically trying to calculate the changing radii, in the need to have a hard number to fall back on. "They'll rush in and trigger your trap for them." The figures passing beyond his range, he let the arm drop. "Being the only existent energy in the building, they'll have no warning until its too late. The surge will be fed and won't stop until the source is exhausted. You don't understand them but you know their primary goal is survival and since you're perceived as a threat, they have no choice but to attempt to eliminate you."

A tic in his voice made Brown pause in his work. Without looking up or back he said, "Sheldon, where are you going with this?"

A bit of his gaze went hard. "You're going to kill the hive." Brown had no answer, not even a guilty sigh. "Aren't you? That's what all this is about."

Brown closed his eyes for a second, maybe not even. A brief tenseness in his shoulder was the only other reaction he had. "Yes," he said, without apology. "It's not what this was about, but its how its going to end, unfortunately."

Sheldon only blinked. Once, twice and in the dark he might have turned a little paler but it might have also been the darkening shrouded shadings creeping in through his window.

"I've been thinking," he said, when he finally had the voice to say. "I'm always thinking in case you haven't noticed."

"Being that you're always telling me about your thoughts, its hard to say otherwise," Brown muttered, stripping another wire and making it part of the lattice he was forming.

"From morning until night, it really doesn't stop." It was impossible to tell how he felt about that. He had turned away, the wisps of his shadow, a dark on dark spread acting in a pantomime that might dissolve at any second. "I wake up and all my dreams have been in equations and diagrams and theorems. I haven't dreamed about a person's face in years and when I do its nobody that I recognize. At breakfast I try to statistically predict which flake in my cereal will get soggy first and how that will affect the order in which I eat them. Then I try to come up with a formulation of milk that will allow them all to become soggy evenly. On the way to work, riding with Leonard, I try to calculate the velocity of clouds in the sky and then convert them to different measurement systems for fun. I'm told that people sometimes see shapes in the clouds . . . one time Leonard told me he saw a boat in the water with ducks surrounding it. And a couple in the boat, sitting huddled together, taking their journey in the sky." He went to wipe his hand on his shirt, and stopped. "I told him I was more interested in how the streaks across the sky from passing planes made perfect graphed tangent curves. He didn't say another word for the rest of the trip. I suspect he was trying to tell me something and as usual, he was unable to convey it. There are days when I don't believe that he and I speak the same language." Brown had ceased working, leaning back slightly with both hands flat on the floor. But he didn't turn around. "On the way in I find myself counting the number of steps it takes me to get inside, comparing it to previous days, factoring in our changing parking space as Leonard refuses to reserve the same one every day, even if its open. I take the standard deviation and try to figure how I can make the walk more efficient. I'm always doing that." He clasped his hands together, rocking a little on his heels before arresting the near-motion. "On the stairs I measure the angle where the brick meets the stairwell and see if I can figure how much the building has sunk into the foundation since the day before." His eyes were glassy holes, lenses hiding churning machines. "This all happens before lunch. Before I even reach my desk. Before my work even begins. And it never stops. That's the beauty of math. Its always adding up or breaking down. Its never stable. It never wants to rest."

"Sheldon, I asked them not to force my hand in this. I _begged_ them not to let me take it this far." Brown had pressed his palms against his forehead, the tips of his fingers digging into his hair. "Do you think this is what I wanted?"

"I've been thinking." In the same tone as before, like the speech was a record that had been flipped over, ready to start again. "Because I can't stop. I've been calculating the relative expendability of each of us here."

"Sheldon." It was a warning, all the weariness gone. "Don't."

"As an experiment, you see." The lightness of his voice belonged at a garden party. One where constantly shifting states of matter in a multi-dimensional universe was the main topic of discussion. "You nicely take yourself out of the equation, because of your regenerative abilities. You're an outlier, throwing the whole system off." He might have laughed then, as if at some private joke but whatever he saw of the punchline ahead he didn't find amusing at all. Still, there was no choice but to progress. "That leaves Tristian as the hero, the central point that everyone rallies around. Nobody can afford to lose the hero, and so he has to stay. Penny could be expendable, because she knows nothing about what's going on and thus her removal could act as a comment on people wandering into situations where they don't belong." He swallowed heavily, perhaps experiencing a bad taste. "Her perspective could be conveyed in all its comical poignancy without her reaching the end."

Brown was getting to his feet now, the screwdriver dropped discarded to the floor. Yet he seemed unable to come forward. Maybe he was talking in the face of the calculating. But it wasn't a place for words.

"Except for Leonard." Was that a snap of the fingers? No, that signaled rank intuition and made a mockery of all his fine equations. "He, too, might be expendable, his inexpert grasp of the science involved leading him to make a fatal mistake and yet in that mistake he gives us the clue that we need to finish this properly. He should be gone. Except for Penny." Brown was wavering, watching, wary. "The two of them, together, can survive where separately they might not be able to. Because together they present the promise of a happy ending, that the events here might bring them closer together and give us something to look forward to in the future, even if I don't understand a single part of it. So they have to survive, because this isn't a tragedy."

"Nobody has to go." Brown's body had flattened, become a series of interlocking dark shards. He could move at any second and friction would just be an inconvenience. "Sheldon, you have to stop calculating."

"So that just leaves me." The desert of his voice.

"Listen to me, you can't keep doing this-"

"I keep turning all the numbers around in my head and it keeps coming out the same way. I'm not the hero, there's no compelling emotional hook to my continued existence, there's no chance that I'll ever pass on my genes, nor do I really want to. I decided a long time ago my DNA has to end with me. I stop here." A certain ill serenity had taken hold of his expression. "Don't you see, the math works out perfectly. I've been marked since the beginning. Every variable falling right into place, but you don't see it until all the elements are aligned."

"You need to stop talking about this." Did he move? Or was it merely a flock of birds passing over a reflection? "You need to stop now."

"It has to balance. In any closed system there has to be some loss before any progression can be made. Thus it wouldn't be for nothing. I'm the evaporation of heat that allows the reaction to proceed. The byproduct of our final triumph." The laugh he made was more an approximation. "I was going to call my memoirs that someday. _Exothermic Interludes._ And you would have needed an IQ test before you could read it, because the fact that complete idiots were reading _A Brief History of Time_ like it was a Danielle Steel novel drove me insane."His arms went to cross over his chest, aborted and switched gears. There was never any real comfort. "I suppose that won't happen now. This is what people do before they get expended, right? They talk about their life plans in the quiet moments before the climax. That way you know they're doomed."

"You've got it all wrong."

Sheldon let his arms swing loose. "Of course you'd say that. Its funny how we never get tired of the cliches. So you have to let this happen. It all makes sense." He licked dry lips. "If you're not convinced I can make a chart that explains-"

The rest of his sentence ended in a violent expulsion of air as Brown slammed him into the opposite wall, just missing the door, the two of them colliding into the space next to it. Brown had one hand flat against Sheldon's chest and the other on his collar, the hard line of his forearm inches from his throat.

"_What is wrong with you?_" The next sound he made wasn't a word but a cough in the form of a refutation. "You are _not _going to die. None of you are. I keep trying to explain to you, this isn't some kind of science-fiction show. When this is over there won't be any theme music playing and we won't be strolling away under the credits. There won't _be_ any credits. You'll finish your day, go to bed and wake up the next morning, just like every other day of your life. That's all. That's all this is. Why do you keep trying to make it more than that?"

"Why do you keep trying to make it less?" came the calm response.

Brown's eyes searched Sheldon's face, frantic gas molecules trapped inside too small of a circle. For a moment it seemed like he might lean forward and push harder until Sheldon was through the opposite wall.

"Tell me, why is this so important to you?" he rasped.

And stepped back to release Sheldon.

The other man fastidiously smoothed out the wrinkles that Brown's action had caused to form in his shirt, refusing to speak until the shirt had been returned to the fifteen percent wrinkle level that he found acceptable. "I don't have a death-wish, if that's what you're asking."

"Good, because if I thought so I'd just break your legs so you couldn't do much of anything and when this was over I'd send you some flowers while you were in the hospital by way of apology." In other hands it might have been a quip. From Brown, it sounded like a viable plan. Suddenly the pressure that had been against his bones didn't seem quite like a warning. "The whole time you've been trying to turn this into another episode of your favorite show, plugging us into some kind of format." Brown held out both arms, a cockeyed grin crossing onto his face. "Do I _look_ like the kind of person who fits into templates?"

Sheldon was only able to meet his gaze for a few seconds before having to look away uncomfortable. The answer he didn't have was all the one that was required.

"Why does it matter?" Brown asked gently, taking a step back to scoop the screwdriver off the floor. He sat down on the bed and took a small box out of his pocket, using the tool to start fiddling with some settings.

"I wanted a role in this." The words came out mumbled, lacking Sheldon's usual loquacious clarity. It was an experiment distilled where the final result still came out cloudy and the yield was nowhere near what you expected.

Brown raised an eyebrow. "And the best you could do was imagine yourself as the heroic sacrifice? That's a unique manifestation of a self-esteem issue."

Sheldon flinched, as if Brown had laughed. But the other man merely kept studying him in a way that he refused to admit was disconcerting. "We don't have time for this," he said, by way of hurrying the scenario along. Changing the subject was a fortitudinous byproduct. "They'll be on us at any moment."

This time Brown did laugh. He made one last adjustment to his box and then slid off the bed to start attaching it to the exposed sockets. The rustle of his black uniform in the dark was every beast his young imagination had ever conjured, living in his closet. "This is what I keep trying to tell you. We're not on their deadline, we don't need to have a crisis before the commercial break, or race along to squeeze into the hour format. We're behind a forcefield and they can't get in and that gives us time to play with."

Sheldon glanced at the Batman bank just over Brown's head, as if trying to make eye contact with it. It didn't wink at him, however, which he half-expected and honestly wouldn't have known how to react to.

"Keep this in mind, Sheldon. We're professionals. I'm second in command of a paramilitary force." He swore under his breath as a splicing slipped, forcing him to start it over again. "I didn't get to where I was by half-assing things. My job depends on getting things done right the first time." He made another twist and then set the rigged device down, the tiny box now sitting on top of it with the closeness of a infant clinging to its mother. Or an abscess not properly excised. Brown turned and sat with his back up against the nightstand, pulling one leg in close. "So while I wait for this little treasure to charge up, it looks like we have a few minutes." He wrapped both hands around the upright leg. "A good time to answer my question from before."

Sheldon bristled slightly. "I told you-"

"'_I wanted a role_' is not an explanation." Brown briefly imitated the other man's nasally rounded tones. "That's a delusion and if I've learned one thing about you today, Doctor Cooper, it's that you aren't delusional. Your social interaction skills need some work and you may need to learn that the words 'genius' and 'prick' aren't synonymous." He glanced around the room, although it wasn't clear how many details he could pick out in the dark. "I can't even complain on your sense of decor, there are days when I look at my quarters and think that what my bed really needs is a stuffed animal." The line of his forehead became serious. "Talk to me."

Sheldon fidgeted. "Why? Why should I do that?"

"Because it will kill some time. Because it might raise my opinion of you. Because you need to speak a sentence that isn't drowning in science." His eyes did not gleam in the dimness. Meager light could not find that angle. It was not possible. "And because I'm listening."

Sheldon bowed his head, as if a string attached to his chin was trying to pull him to earth. His gaze swept left and right, regarding a floor that he could barely see. There was a snap to his arm as he went to grasp for an object that was no longer there. He made no sound, but held himself still.

Then he suddenly burst into motion, almost flinging himself away from the door and crossing the room to the other side of his bed. He stood over it, barely able to see Brown across the breadth of the mattress. Only the top of his head could be noted, a dense hump in the dimness. And the eyes, just peeking over the top of it, a gaze coming from the trenches, asking if it was safe to go over. Waiting for Sheldon to say.

He didn't take a deep breath. Nobody wanted to follow every cliche. "Can I ask . . . do you get along with your family?"

The eyes vanished briefly, a planet passing in front of a star and letting all the observers know that it was there. "No more or less than any other family." The pause that came suggested that he wasn't going to say anything else but then he added, "We haven't spoken in a while but that's more due to circumstances than anything else." There was a scuffle as he shifted his boots along the floor. "I think about them all the time."

"I grew up in a household that made sure I received all the support a normal young boy could ever ask for." He sniffed and rubbed the skin under his nose. "Unfortunately, I was not a normal child and the support my family gave me was all the wrong type."

"Oh? Do tell."

"My father worked in a factory as a foreman. His only purpose in life for that shift was to make sure that nothing exploded and that a quota was met. He took a great deal of pride in ensuring that a certain uniformity was maintained and everything ran smoothly. He hated surprises." Sheldon put one hand down on the bed, pressing into the mattress, testing perhaps how far he could push before it would stop springing back. "In his spare time he was a mechanic, always tinkering with the family car. He could dismantle and reassemble an engine like someone running a film strip forwards and backwards." He pressed harder. "He could tell very early on that I would be interested in science. And to him it made perfect sense that I should learn cars. That was the only science he knew."

"Well, you're not working as a mechanic now, so I'm assuming that something went awry with that scenario," Brown pointed out.

Sheldon shuddered before answering. "The first time he came toward me with oil stained hands, his fingernails all dirty, the smell of grease all over his clothes . . . I ran into the bathroom and didn't come out for hours. If I didn't hate the smell of bile, I would have vomited." He shivered again, as if trying to shake off droplets that refused to be dislodged. "To me, the inside of a car, the engine was as close as I got to hell. The noise and the stink was unbearable, the pistons and gears meshing together into this unholy racket, the heat and the stench, I wanted to go nowhere near it." He blinked, his vision slowly clearing of a nightmare that was still too close. "Even today, I don't want anything to do with them. I won't drive one. I can't do it."

"I imagine that's why you became a theoretical physicist." Brown reached over and checked the device, although he seemed to be keeping one eye on Sheldon as he did so.

"Maybe." But the expression on his face suggested it was more than _maybe_. "In practice, everything is so inefficient. Theory works on nothing more than precise mathematics and beautifully streamlined thought. Done properly it can be infinitely replicated and endlessly analyzed. Its parameters can be delineated to the finest degree and anyone who chooses to study it can understand it." He sniffed. "Perhaps not as well as I can, but it certainly gives them a goal to attain." Brown looked ready to comment but Sheldon kept speaking, sliding onto the bed as he did so. It creaked in a symphonic rendition of Hooke's Law. "My mother also loved science, especially since she believed that all science was invented by Jesus." He shifted, his eyes staring past Brown. "It's possible that her definition and my definition of science conflicted slightly." His gaze snapped back to now. "She would often take the physics magazines I would read at the breakfast table and replace them with what she thought was more appropriate reading, books with titles like _Heaven is the Best Laboratory_ and _Bacteria Are the Test Tubes of Satan. _There was a period of time where I was quite convinced that the Book of Job was an account of someone trying very hard to demonstrate a total collapse of the wavefunction through various tests and trials. I was very surprised to find out that wasn't the point at all."

"At least that wasn't the stated intention," Brown noted. He tapped the device with one finger, looking it curiously. Another tap and it beeped somewhat reassuringly, leading him to set it back down again.

"My sister just wanted me to invent something so that she could have all the dolls she ever wanted, instead of hiding Mom's cigarettes and extorting money out of her when the nicotine withdrawal started." He seemed engrossed in trying to spread his fingers out so that the digits were exactly the same distance apart. "Every day my father would come to me and ask if I wanted to help replace the sparkplugs in some jalopy, or my mother would try to get me to wear another T-shirt where angels would dance on a DNA helix." He slid his arm forward but refused to sink down. From Brown's angle he was so far away, refusing to become nearer. "One day after my mother had dunked my chemistry set in holy water so that the chemicals would spontaneously react, I couldn't take it anymore. I ran. I went to the only other place I knew in town . . . the library. Most of the shelves were crammed full of terrible Westerns or racks stuffed with romance novels or books about how to put houses together or a thousand and one uses for a dead steer . . . but there was one section tucked in the back, a dusty corner that nobody went into. The books weren't even cataloged, just jammed into the shelves." His hand created a shallow crease in the sheets, his eyes half-closed. "The pages were ripped, the covers were missing, everything stank of dust and moldy paper. But I was just looking for a place to hide and calculate coefficients in peace and quiet, I wouldn't have paid attention to any of it."

"What story was it?" Brown asked quietly.

Sheldon's face had nearly hit the bed but suddenly he jerked up, his body and arm making a perfect triangle. "'Nightfall'," he said, his voice just south of solemn. "It was an old pulp magazine. The cover of it was a star being eclipsed, only the outlines of it visible. The rest of the sky was dotted with stars, garish and brilliant, so many of them that the cover artist must have given himself carpal tunnel to draw them all. And right against the bottom of the scene, tiny and silhouetted, was a single person, standing fast against the sudden lack of darkness. They weren't running, they weren't quivering in fear, they were merely . . . _standing_ there, taking it all in. Awed and curious and questioning. I imagined them feeling so small against that vast panorama, overwhelmed by it all, by all the things they could know and the greater sum that they would never be able to comprehend. I imagined them deciding they had to start somewhere and this would be the perfect place." The triangle collapsed and he fell against the bed. "I was nearly locked in there that night. Over the next few months I read every single book in that section. But I never found that magazine again. I can remember every single fact that has ever crossed my mind, no matter how miniscule, but I cannot recall the name of that magazine."

"The story's been reprinted a bunch of times," Brown pointed it out. "If you ever wanted to-"

"I _know_ that," he snapped, a trace of his usual snippy peevishness creeping back into his tone. "And it doesn't matter." He rolled onto his back, one leg pulled up so that the heel rested just on the edge of the bed. Staring up into the darkness of the ceiling, he seemed ready for the view overhead to become suddenly flush with stars of their own and illuminate all the sights he never thought he'd witness. "At home I had no one who understood me, and worse, they had no desire _to_ understand me. I was so outside their frame of reference that it was like a red giant attempting to contemplate the concept of absolute zero." He held one hand up against the dark, staring through invisible webs. "But these people spoke a language I could recognize, dressed up in gleaming spaceships and unpronounceable alien names and far-flung worlds. Galaxies spinning through the universe like shining coins, jungles made of glass and men who felt that discovery was the most important goal anyone could accomplish, because it took a dark corner and made it a little brighter. And let you keep going. Those men. I could rattle off their names like my own periodic table. Asimov, Heinlein, Silverberg, Vance, Clarke, Clement . . . it went on." Sheldon let the hand drop, the fall making no sound on the mattress. Brown watched the top of his head, the neat splotch of hair, and said nothing, his face drawn into a thin line. "In a town where science was defined by how many bullets you could put into the roadsign at fifty paces, for the first time I didn't feel alone. For a little while, I could escape from the only world I knew into another one. Into a life where I could speak and not be met by blank looks if my words went over three syllables."

"And you wanted that kind of life?"

"Don't be ri_dic_ulous," Sheldon said, his head twisting to regard Brown out of the corner of his eye. His voice had risen ever so slightly, as if he had taken great offense to this. "Have you_ seen_ how many things go wrong in those stories . . . spaceships explode into vacuum, aliens reveal themselves to be hostile, wars break out that blow up entire solar systems. People are exposed to mutant viruses or become part of some hideous experiment where they're forcibly merged with some bizarre lifeform. And let's not get started on how many times the robots are prone to rebelling and attacking." He his head swung back to face the opposite wall. It muffled his voice just slightly and Brown tilted his head to hear better. "No, I wanted no part of those lives . . . but I wanted it to be real. I wanted to know that every problem could be solved with a bit of scientific ingenuity that came together at the last possible moment, that a fair amount of pluck and the right equipment could get anything done. That life followed a narrative and the narrative resulted in success." His voice dropped into another level of blur and it may not have been the angle. "Every time. Predictably."

Brown rubbed the sides of his neck with both hands. "I don't have to tell you that life isn't like that."

"No." It was impossible to tell if that was an agreement or a quiet murmur of defiance. Suddenly his body whipped itself off the bed, his feet dangling off while he stared completely away from Brown. "You're going to kill them, after all."

Brown stood up, addressing the back of Sheldon's head. "Give me another option."

Sheldon stiffened slightly at the sound of Brown's voice, implacable and questioning. Then his back relaxed and he leaned forward, pressing his hands together, his body beginning to imitate the first sequences of a sine curve. His head was bowed so deeply that he appeared to be contemplating the extent of his own navel.

He took a quick breath that could have been the start of a sentence but instead was merely the introduction to an exhalation. "Did I . . ." the words came out as a crumbling mumble. Just as quickly he picked his head up, still resolutely staring ahead. "Did I ever tell you about my favorite _Doctor Who_ serial?"

Brown felt a fist clench. "Sheldon, seriously, we don't have _time _for this-"

"Its called 'Warriors of the Deep'," he continued without even acknowledging that Brown had spoken. "Any _Doctor Who_ story from the eighties is going to have its faults, bad music, cheap special effects, costumes put together more by hope than anything else, a story that perhaps needed one more rewrite. 'Warriors of the Deep' has all of those and more. I saw it for the first time as a child and even from that starry-eyed vantage point I could see there were flaws. It looks cheap, the big monster of the story, the Myrka was thrown together at the last second and the men inside often appear to be going in different directions. You can even see the fresh paint on the costume rubbing off on the set walls. Just tacky." Sheldon made a face, as if reevaluating the show right that second. "But the story had one thing going for it. Peter Davison. The Doctor. My Doctor, really. Everyone has one."

"I'm pretty sure I don't have one," Brown commented, his voice rattling with impatience. His eyes kept darting back to the small device on the floor.

"Of course you do," Sheldon said gently, explaining a solemn mystery of life to the other man. "You just don't know it yet." He sat up straighter, both hands on the bed, ready to leap off. "The story was about the return of the Silurians and the Sea Devils, neither of which the show ever addressed with any scientific accuracy, nor why the creatures would ever call themselves that. No matter. They teamed up against some humans on an undersea base, wanting to eliminate humanity by triggering a global war. The Doctor tries to stop them and . . . with Peter Davison it was strange because he was so young. The youngest actor in the role at the time. Playing this seven hundred year old alien, trying to find his way through this awful story and everything is just going wrong, no matter what he does. Both sides want to kill each other and he's doing his best to keep that from happening, trying to get everyone to come to terms. But nobody seems to want to."

He made just a quick glance back toward Brown, perhaps making sure the man was still there. The eyes that sought Brown were sunken in a sense, still without even a flicker. But the contact was broken before anything further could be noticed.

"Nobody had time to rehearse properly, so you sit through almost a hundred minutes of everyone stumbling over each other, through stilted dialogue and variable acting, to finally get to the end." The breath he took was there and gone before it could even register. "Along the way the base has been massacred, the monster killed, all the Sea Devils wiped out with a poisonous gas, just a few people left on board. The Doctor is stopping the missiles from launching a nuclear war when the person helping him is killed by the last Silurian on the base. A Silurian, in turn, that is killed by the Doctor's companion Turlough."

Brown had gone quiet now. Sheldon stared at the wall of his room, the shelves lurking somewhere in the dark. But ahead was a television screen only he could see, and a drama playing out that had been branded into his skull at a young age.

"Suddenly the Doctor and his two friends are only surrounded by bodies. They won, but everyone has died. And Peter Davison, the Doctor, he stares at the carnage around him and . . . and he just looks up and . . . his _face_. He looks like hell." Sheldon wasn't telling this story to anyone anymore, in a way the recitation was for his own ears, processing what he hadn't understood years ago and was only just beginning to fathom now. "Like he's been through hell. Seven hundred year old eyes staring out of a young man's body. When he finally talks he can barely get the words out, he's just shaken.

"He says: '_There should have been another way_.'"

Sheldon shifted on the bed, rousing himself from a dream that nobody else should have been part of. "And then it ends. It's over." His voice was the sound of waves hitting sand, frustrated when they couldn't drag any of it back.

There was a long silence, Sheldon seeming to lapse into a kind of stasis. Finally, Brown said in a flat voice, "And that's your favorite."

Sheldon pivoted on the bed, his eyes carrying a certain gleam in the darkness. Brown didn't flinch but nor was he entirely unmoved. "Those five words mean more to me than anything else I've ever heard. In a way they're more beautiful than any poem I've ever had the misfortune of reading. Whenever I think I'm getting lazy, whenever I'm confronted with a problem that I believe is insurmountable, I just remember that." Every aspect of his posture bespoke a steady clarity. "And that's generally all I need."

"I've gone over it again and again, Sheldon." Brown refused to sound defensive. "Do you think I haven't? Do you think I'm going the easy route?" He tapped a fist against his hip, the only outward sign of his frustration. "No, I'm sorry. But this is the way it has to be."

Sheldon was suddenly off the bed and coming around, the constant animation of his energy returned to his frame. "But maybe we just need to consider the situation again for a few more minutes. If we thought about it fresh then-"

"_No_." And that was enough. Sheldon halted in his tracks, one hand clutching the bedpost as if refusing to believe that the gale had left him attached. A little of the harshness faded from his voice, but not much. "I'm sorry, but I warned them. I told them how this could go." His stance yielded to nothing, although his gaze was slightly off to the side, quite aware of where Sheldon was staring.

The other man advanced a few more inches, despite it all. "But maybe they don't quite understand, maybe this is the only way they know how to survive."

"I don't _care_, Sheldon."

Undaunted, he tried one more time. Perhaps he had to. "Maybe they're just scared-"

"And I have people in this building who could get _hurt!_" Brown snarled back, with enough force that it erased all progress. "People who never had any part of this. And I am not going to let that happen, no matter how much it interferes with your visions of what science-fiction should be. I am _sorry_, Sheldon, but this is not some magazine story, its real and if we screw up here, people could suffer." His voice dropped into a tone that was razor thin. "That's my responsibility here. That's what I'm trying to avoid." He rocked back on his heels slightly, and Sheldon could see the weight of it under his eyes. The pressure that even regeneration wouldn't allow to relent. He wondered if the man was ever able to sleep. "So what I need you to do is act like a good deputized soldier and do exactly what I say. Just like in the stories. Am I clear?"

Sheldon didn't react immediately, his body briefly swaying under the storm of words. When he did respond, he only nodded silently, slowly. Numbly. But his lips moved without words, mouthing an expression that wouldn't get released.

Even in the hazed dimness of the room, even without seeing him directly, Brown knew what it was. "I know," he said, quietly, already pivoting on his heel. "Don't think I don't. If we had time maybe we could find a better way, but we don't. So this'll have to do. Sometimes that's how it works out."

With a click of his boots he strode over to the door and flung it open, stepping out into the hallway. He was charcoal against the wall, a sharply delineated smear. "Meet me in Leonard's room in a minute so we can set up there. And then we can finish this."

"Very well," Sheldon said, although Brown was already gone. He stood ramrod perfect near the bed, his vision a soft laser beam angled for the floor. "I'll be along in just a minute." Slowly he began to walk toward the door, his footfalls making no sound, not even a creak.

Went toward the door and then turned abruptly right. Still staring, in that straight direct line.

A few more soundless steps.

"Don't," he might have said.

One last step, then a stop. The kind that goes no further.

"Don't make me," Sheldon told no one, and everyone.

And he stared at the device on the floor. With laser beam focus.


	15. Chapter 15

* * * * *

Leonard was sitting on the chair staring into space and doing his best impression of a boneless heap when Tristian came back into the room. "I've put up forcefields all around the sector," he said, gesturing toward each corner with the sword. "The Grand Moff and the droid are doing their best to make certain the fields will hold against the assault. With luck this will be all over by daybreak and we can all jump on a freighter and be halfway to Endor before-"

"You don't have to do that," Leonard said dully.

"I'm sorry?" Tristian said, turning to let his gaze follow where Leonard was pointing. When he saw the target, he merely added, "Oh," and carefully strode across the room, taking time to place the sword carefully on the kitchen counter.

He went past Leonard and over to the couch, standing over it with a serious expression on his face. Hands clasped behind his back, he bent over at the waist to regard the piece of furniture.

A second later a grinding growl not unlike a truck getting stuck in reverse gear was heard, causing him to wince.

He glanced toward Leonard. "How long has she been asleep?"

Leonard shrugged, his hands indicating a malleable space. "I'm not really sure, I was setting up stuff according to your friend's diagram when she came back in. She actually seemed interested in playing the game again but I . . . I didn't know what to have her do." He slumped in the chair a little, folding his leg so that the ankle was resting on the opposite knee. "So I had her pretend to be a look out and I . . . gave her one of Sheldon's Etch-a-Sketch's and told her it was a security monitor." Leonard pressed his hands together, watching her over the tops of them. "I kept going around the room preparing stuff and I was explaining to her what I was doing. You know, in game terms." He let his arms drops and tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. "At some point during that she got bored and fell asleep."

Tristian did his best to look understanding. "I'm sure it wasn't totally you. She's had a long day."

"I know, I was so surprised. Normally she's fascinated by the intricacies of parallel circuits." Leonard made a face and laughed hollowly, shaking his head. Then he lapsed back into silence again.

Tristian regarded him from the corner of one eye before turning his attention to the coffee table, where Brown's diagram was spread out. He crouched down and studied it for a second, fingers following the drawn circuit lines.

Finally, he tapped a portion of it. "Is this where you left off?"

"Hm?" Leonard leaned forward without really changing his posture. "Yeah, around there. I was just taking a break for a moment."

"Don't worry about it, I'll finish." Tristian gathered it up and went across the room toward their desks, slipping around the backs to play with the laptop wires. "There's not much more and I can probably decipher Joe's handwriting better than you can."

"Thanks. But I'm used to bad handwriting." He shifted on the chair, letting his leg drop back to the floor. "One time Sheldon decided that he was the next Da Vinci, and since he had heard that Leonardo could write backwards, he figured he would one-up him by writing backwards and in another language. Except he picked the dead language of Eyak and decided to write all his lab notes and research papers like that. I needed a research grant just to decipher the grocery list. And a full length mirror."

Tristian laughed from behind the desk. "He doesn't seem capable of doing anything halfway."

"_That's_ for sure," Leonard agreed. Both men lapsed into silence as Tristian kept monkeying with the wires for the computers, occasionally turning the paper this way and that to try and make sense of Brown's notes. Once in a while he muttered to himself but otherwise kept working.

After a few minutes, Leonard blurted out, "How did you get her to come out of the bathroom?"

Tristian stopped and poked his head over the top of the desk, eyes slightly narrowed. "Excuse me?"  
Leonard leaned forward, his body bending almost double. His eyes skated alongside the edge of her, unable to stare at her sleeping form directly. His hands were clasped tightly together. "She wouldn't come out, I thought she was going to stay in there all night." The backlighting of the distant sword was a finger of a lost sunset touching the contours of his face. "She was so mad."

Tristian shrugged. "I just talked to her, that's all."

Leonard gave him an incredulous look that the darkness refused to diminish. "You just . . . talked to her?"

"What else was I supposed to do? Kick the door in and drag her out?" Tristian stood up, his hand sliding up one wire as he tried to find the source of it. "This was all very weird to her and she was just confused."

His eyes widened slightly. "You mean you told her about . . ."

Tristian smiled. "No, I meant _Star Wars_. I didn't really have time to explain the rest of this and, frankly, Han Solo metaphors are probably more her speed than alien invasions."

"Wow." Leonard flopped back again. "You got her to come out."

"Oh, you would have gotten her to come out eventually," Tristian told him. He came around the front of the computer and switched it on, tapping idly at a key while it booted up. "Its not like she wanted to stay in there. And you're her friend."

"Yeah, that's me. The great friend," Leonard answered without inflection.

Tristian turned with one hand still on the keyboard and gave Leonard an odd look. The other man seemed oblivious to the scrutiny, not taking his eyes off Penny. Something in Tristian's expression softened and he rested his back against the desk, folding his arms over his chest.

"You care about her quite a bit, don't you?" he asked finally, quietly.

The sound of Tristian's voice seemed to spur a spate of words in Leonard. "I can't _talk_ to her. I mean, I can't talk to most women but that, it never seems to bother me as much as . . . as much as this does."

"She was talking to you here," Tristian pointed out. "I got the impression you guys saw each other all the time."

"Well, we are neighbors."

Tristian shook his head. "I couldn't tell you anything about my neighbors. We certainly don't hang out."

"She'll talk to anyone. Well, almost anyone." There was no bitterness in that statement, he was merely stating the facts as he knew them. That was what scientists did. Or so he was told. "She talked to the two weird strangers who lived across the hall. Her and I talk all the time, several times a week, almost every day. But we never _say_ anything. Or I never do. Its all just . . . just science and spaceships and comic books and stuff she doesn't care about." A fist banged softly on the arm of the couch. "Its not even that. My whole life I've seen guys get the girls and I can't understand _why_. The most inarticulate Neanderthal knows how to talk to them, they know how to make the connection and its . . . its just this big mystery to me. How to make someone _want_ to be around you, and open up to you and _say_ things to each other that mean something, that's more than just idle chatter." His hand banged again, harder, then went to hammer one more time before he stopped himself just short. "Its like everyone else has cracked a code that I don't even know the first letter of."

Tristian studied Leonard. "You'll figure it out," he said, finally, shifting so that both hands were bracing himself against the desk. "Sometimes its just a matter of finding the-"

"Don't say it." His voice was barbed wire against cotton, slicing even as it cushioned. "I'm tired of hearing all this garbage about the _right_ person, like we're all waiting to bump into a certain gas molecule ricocheting around the planet. You . . . you ever hear the song 'Ana Ng'. They Might Be Giants?" Leonard didn't even wait to see if Tristian nodded. "Yeah, I know, its nerd music but . . . if you listen to it, if you really listen to what its saying, its trying to tell you that, that if your soulmate does exist, statistically the chances of finding her on a planet of ten billion people and climbing every day are extremely slim. I did the math one time and . . . I couldn't sleep for a week, any time someone mentioned standard deviations or area under the curve I just wanted to run from the room screaming." He twisted in the chair so that he was almost folded over himself. But he never took his eyes off Penny. "I can't figure it out. What they want. I don't know the first step. I've been nice, I've been attentive, I've paid for dinner and held open doors, I've pretended to know what was happening in the life of Paris Hilton, I've offered advice and given sympathy. But they won't let me in. Its like I . . . I have all the pieces and there's this . . ." one hand attempted to encompass the shape of it. ". . . this piece that I'm missing, right in the center. The one factor that I can't get." He looked ready to laugh, but didn't, instead sinking lower into the chair. "I can derive the equations for Feynman diagrams during the walk from the parking lot to my lab. But I can't define what I'm missing. Where the line is between what I am and where I want to be." This time he did laugh, although it was more a shiver, like he was avoiding waking up Penny. "Oh God, Sheldon, is right, I am turning into dark matter. You can only determine me by my negative space."

"I was going to say," Tristian continued mildly, "that sometimes it is just a matter of finding out exactly what you want."

"I know what people don't want." Even as Leonard said it, he knew how ridiculous it sounded. _I'll be looking to buy a pet cat again in no time. God damn_.

"On paper," Leonard said, trying to build a case, a theory, without having all the proper evidence, without having made all the right experiments and notations and footnotes and conclusions, "we're not right for each other at all. We shouldn't even be friends. But I've seen her with other guys." The admission was a splash of dark ink right across his neat research paper. "And they're not right for her either. And its so obvious that they aren't, but she tries anyway and I keep thinking, if we're not right, why doesn't she try with me? What's stopping her?"

"Mm." Tristian levered himself away from the desk, going over to the second computer and starting to tinker with it. His motions were deft and sure even in the dark, repeating exactly what was done before without even referring to the paper. Automatic movements and considered phrases. "Perhaps your friendship is worth more to her than just an idle chance."

"If she thought it was worth it, wouldn't she think it would be worth the risk?"

Tristian shrugged without turning around. "That's not always the case. Right now you're assuming that things would somehow work out, even though you admit that you aren't right for each other." He rotated the laptop so he could get at the wires, balancing a few loose ones on his leg. "But this doesn't answer the question . . . if it didn't work out, if you knew for certain that your dream was just that, a dream, would you be able to bear it? Because our dreams, they never really do work out. Not how we expect." He tossed a wire over the top of the desk, scuttling around to snatch the plug end off the floor so he could reconnect it elsewhere. "I've been finding that out recently and it . . . it takes some getting used to. And if you can't fathom your dream not coming true, then maybe you're putting too much stock _into_ the dream. If it becomes more important than the person . . ." his voice became muffled as he disappeared completely behind the desk. ". . . well, I can't imagine living like that. And I've seen some very strange things."

"So what do you suggest I do?" He didn't actually expect an answer, as much as the heroes always did seem to possess them, like another clip of energy bolts in their cartridges that could shoot holes in the wall depicting the diagram of his life and the steps he needed to take. Lensmen and Lanterns careening along brightened ways. In the future nobody ever seemed to date. They were just together, or always alone and that was just the way it was. He didn't want the immutability of that stasis. But he didn't know if he had the energy to pour into the reaction.

"Way I see it . . ." he popped up from a corner of the desk that Leonard wasn't expecting, a flexible monolith rising against the backdrop. "And keep in mind that I'm really just a detached observer here, simply passing through . . . but this clearly means something to you beyond some infatuation or proving that nerdy guys can get attractive girls, and if this really means something to you beyond that . . " he tapped at the desk with two fingers, the rhythms completely out of time with each other. "You say she's had other boyfriends, right?"

"Yeah." He tried not to sound sullen about that, even as he was certain that every particle of his posture screamed _don't remind me_.

"Well, then . . . I look around here . . ." he stopped tapping, swept his hand up and banged it down lightly on the desk with a flourish, "and I don't see any of them." For a second it seemed like he might be the only immobile force that ever existed. "But I do see you, still here. It may not be your dream, but it should mean something." He let that drift over to Leonard, watching him as if trying to gauge his reaction. He gave no sign that he had seen what he was looking for, or the lack of it, and simply slipped back behind the desk. "You should consider that."

_Maybe I'm still here_. Leonard knew the tension that came when you were so close to making a breakthrough that it was like you were up against a wall of frosted glass. And you could see where you needed to be, could see the outline and the depth and the shape of it, but you couldn't see the details. But it was so close, you could put your cheek on the glass and the feel the temperature on the other side. _Yet she's still over there_. There was no way to reach it, you could run your hands over the wall, trying to find a crack or a groove or a purchase, some kind of hint that told you how to get over there. The breakthrough, the flaw, the clue. Just one more step would get you there but you had no idea how to proceed. It was hard to be scientific when you were so near. When you were afraid someone else might reach it before you, and prove all that work was meaningless.

He went to answer Tristian but the other man was engrossed in wiring the room, the conversation seemingly already passed out of his head. Leonard didn't think that was the case, but he also didn't have the ego to believe that Tristian was entirely focused on Leonard's lack of a love life, given the circumstances.

His back was starting to ache from being slumped in the chair, so he heaved himself to his feet. Penny stirred at the sound of his movement and he froze, wondering what she would ever say if he was the first person she saw upon waking up. _Where the hell did you come from?_ was probably more along the lines of how it would go. Leonard held himself still for several beats, waiting for her next move. He was always doing that, it seemed. There was no choice now, though.

Her next move was to steady the course, apparently, only shifting her legs a bit before altering her light snoring to a different pitch. Leonard stared at her for another second, as if expecting her to say something profound or elicit some type of slumbering confession. None of that happened, of course. That was too absurd even for science-fiction.

"So you're almost finished?" Leonard asked, leaning over the front of the desk to stare at the top of Tristian's head. Away from the sword's glow everything was drenched in deep blackness, the kind that made the eyes play all kinds of tricks as if tried to decipher what signals the brains was receiving. After seeing the _The Blob_, it was months before he could even walk past the pile of clothing that his mother used to keep outside the bathroom door before it went down into the laundry room. Of course, his mother had interpreted it as a repressed fear of mucus and thus extrapolated it to an inability to deal with what a person was really like inside. Some years, he wasn't sure how far off she was.

"I think so," Tristian told him. The top of his head was the shavings of an alien jungle, a shaggy beast slithering silently at the midnight hour. "I'll have Joe look it over before this gets underway but once I saw where he was going with it, the connections weren't that difficult. We did something similar once before, I think."

"Oh. And that . . . it worked?" A voice rustled in the back of his head. _Wait, we're really doing this?_

"More or less." There was an entire story in the phrasing of those three words. All of a sudden there was a crushing pressure on Leonard's chest as the realization hit him that he had let these two men wire their entire apartment for . . . for what? A death trap? Essentially. _More or less_. He was standing in the middle of what would either be a teeming nest of angry aliens or a hotbed of corpses. That was the utter truth of it. Nothing was guaranteed here. No cameras were going to peek out from behind a studio facade and tell him when it was good to stand clear of the special effects. _More or less_. No one was going to yell _cut_ just before the danger came down. All he had was the assurance of these two men who he didn't know, who were brave and right and honest and on some level out of their minds. Without noticing he had shifted into their world_. More or less_. And the friction from the screaming Doppler acceleration was reminding him that he didn't belong here, of the acceptances that Tristian and Brown constantly shouldered without any consideration because they had already factored in the cost. Acceptances that Leonard had never remembered agreeing to. Acceptances that he had laid on others without asking them.

_Oh God_. Suddenly his apartment was more foreign than the most bizarre landscape that CGI could ever conjure. Sitting right on the center target with the gun aimed directly at them and not only did the trajectory have to be perfectly exact but the bomb sitting under them had to go off too at the right moment. _Penny_. Nobody moves and nobody gets hurt. _More or less_.

"Oh . . ." however the sentence was going to end he didn't want to know. On some level he had led himself to believe that this was merely a romp, the surface of a story without the parts that lingered underneath. The reality of it slowly underscored as recognizable objects bobbed to the top of the lake, revealed in clearer detail. They had blown up his lamp. They had tried to short his brain out. And they had threatened everyone inside this building. _Everyone._ His legs buckled and he told himself that this wasn't an asthma attack because he was a grown man and they didn't have those kinds of things, not due to panic, not due to a very quiet freaking out. His lungs were perfectly fine. Boisterous, even.

"Did you say something?" That was Tristian, of course, efficiently steering them directly into the necessary danger. He didn't project the steely resolve of a James T Kirk or the optimistic verve of a Buck Rogers or even the cheerful bravery of a Superman. He and Brown were making it up as they went along and today was no different. This was their punching the clock.

Words scratched at the sides of his throat, embedded without escaping. Speaking was coughing up a mint edition comic book, all sharp clean edges and the taste of glossy paper. "I was . . . just wondering, are . . . are you, we, us . . . are we going to be okay? Safe, I mean, are we safe, I think you're okay now, I don't want you to think that I think for a second you're anything less than-"

"Leonard." It was the kind of voice that could stop a taxi in New York City with just a casual wave of the hand. Leonard was curled against the desk, twisted to the side so that his cheek was resting on the cool wood, the knob of the drawer digging into his skin like an ingrown tooth.

"Yes?" He winced, embarrassed at how his voice sounded like a wet kitten. His knees shifted as he tried to sink further into the floor.

"She's going to be fine. Nobody is going to hurt her. She's probably going to sleep through the whole thing." Leonard heard the _flick_ as Tristian perhaps tied two wires together. On the other side of the wall it was impossible to tell exactly what was happening. All he would know was the effects. That was physics in a way, or even science. You guessed from the evidence at hand but never truly knew if you were right. At some point you just had to accept, or else you'd never be able to go forward.

"So there's no danger at all?" He put one hand flat on the desk but there was no purchase. He couldn't go up and he couldn't slide back down. Yet he needed to pick a direction. "Honestly?"

Tristian paused and in a voice that mumbled just at the edges said, "I didn't say that."

The fall almost arrived, then. But he gritted his teeth and maintained. "What's going to happen? Exactly, Tristian." He had no right to demand and every reason.

Again, the rustle and the settling. Maybe he was sitting down now. Two of them on opposite sides, perhaps guessing at what the other could see. "Joe thinks this will work. It probably will."

"But?"

"It may not." The phrase came so easily that he wondered how long Tristian had been holding it in for. Leonard did his best to identify Penny's breathing and found that the rhythm kept eluding him. "It may not go off properly, they may have come up with a defense we weren't expecting . . . its hard to say." The desk shuddered slightly and he heard the laptop scrape a little as it was dragged an inch or two across the top. "But if they get in, if this goes wrong, they're not going to hurt you."

"How do you know that?"

"Because we'll put ourselves in the way first." He made it sound so simple. "Listen, Leonard, I know you're scared . . ."

"Nah," he said, without conviction, one hand rubbing his stomach to ease the vortex it was becoming.

"Okay," Tristian amended, "I know you're taking this with stoic equanimity. But the thing is, if this goes south, they're going to come after us first. They know we're the threats, they've seen us both." He knocked lightly on side of the desk, some humor returning to his voice. "And Joe and I are very good with adjusting to changing situations. He was trained by the best, so he normally has a few backup plans sifting around in his head. I've gotten good at following his lead."

Leonard looked for his reflection in the lens of his own glasses. But there was just the pale hint of a curve, the way the Earth turned away to suggest hints of the sight that were just out of view. "I just don't want her hurt. She had no part in any of this. It wouldn't be fair."

"I don't want anyone hurt." The quiet certainty of his statement shamed Leonard a little. He had barely thought about the rest of the building. All the neighbors he didn't know, engaged in this without even getting a choice. Sometimes it was so hard to consider the world outside his apartment, like his life only existed in tiny sections that were connected by vague blurred ribbons of his day. "That's why we're drawing them all here. So they'll leave everyone else alone. I'm not a real huge fan of seeing people who weren't involved get caught up in this."

"Do we count?" His knees were starting to hurt from his gnarled position and he began to uncurl, letting himself slide up the height of the desk. "Or are we honorary members now?"

Even Tristian had to laugh at that, only it was quick and quiet and swiftly gone. "No, you're not . . . really involved. But I have to admit you're a little more than bystanders."

"I know. Lucky us." His head was running on parallel tracks, the thoughts he wanted and the thoughts that he was trying to keep away. He kept getting images of a fission reaction going out of control, the atoms all splitting until nothing was left. And the sound the atoms made as they burst apart. "Ah . . . Tristian . . . about nobody getting hurt." How the question came to him he'd never know but it was one he had never seen the shows ask, the one question that set this place apart from a studio and his life away from a script. "Maybe you don't get this question too often but . . ." He went down an inch, tried to recover.

"As far as I know, the sword doesn't really cause-"

"The aliens, the . . . hive. What you're going to do to them . . . will it hurt? Will they feel anything?" Almost immediately he wanted to take it back, even as he knew that if he had never asked it he never would have been able to forgive himself.

"Mm." It was more an underscored grunt than a proper noise. In that moment he knew that Tristian had considered the question as well. And had come up with just as little of an answer. "I can't say I know. It may hurt. I can't imagine it'll be completely painless."

A little further up now, his leg was just cramping. Extend it slightly, push against the floor. Tristian's actions were still a mystery to him, the same clatters and shufflings that used to haunt his bedroom in the late evening dark, sneaking armies and black-on-black flyers sailing overhead, whole vistas acted out in the space just beyond his eyes.

"And you're okay with that?" He needed to abandon this line of questioning the same way a prop plane needed to abandon a NASCAR track.

"No." It came so fast that the top of his head nearly became impaled by the edge of the desk, the lip that hung over, cornered and sharpened. "But I've come to accept certain . . . necessities in doing this." Voices didn't rise, only people did. People and errant clouds. "Working with the Time Patrol gives me a chance to do some good but I can't forget that they are basically a military organization. And sometimes their solutions to problems are more final than I'd like." There was a shaded cusp to his words, the edge of a consideration that was only just beginning to take hold. "I tolerate it, for now. For Joe, for as long as I feel we're doing more good than damage."

"And when you can't tolerate it anymore?" _Shut up, you idiot!_

The sound was not the whole story. "I tell myself that when that time comes, the next step will make perfect sense." _I tell myself that. _The echo drew him higher, a sunrise made of shadows that made the hard lines of his apartment into the rounded curves of elementary theory. "I'll know exactly what to do."

Leonard pushed his glasses further up his nose, not even realizing they had slipped. "So you're . . . you aren't part of the Time Patrol? Your friend said you weren't but I thought he was . . ."

"Oh no." Tristian was not even a ripple anymore. The view refused to reveal. "It seems that I'm something quite a bit different."

"And . . . what about your girlfriend?" The blade out of the corner of his eye was a slow laser, seeping into the cracks of his vision. He had to stand up, before his legs went out completely. Had to go over, or else he wouldn't see. The edge of a desk was a line separating the wood from the world.

A surprised chuckle, thrown up as a defense. "Her? No, she has nothing to do with any of this, though her roommate sometimes jokes that she's so punctual that she might as well be a one-woman Time-"

"N-no, that's . . . that isn't what I meant." Suddenly he knew what nervousness tasted like. It wasn't the prickly peculiar feeling on his skin that greeted him every time he passed Penny in the hallway unexpectedly. That was a familiar depth charge now, the bottomless friction caused by running in place for too long. No, nervousness was the burning sensation that slowly erupted in the back of the throat, a sign of Thai food left too long in the refrigerator and the distant wonder if maybe this is the one time where being lazy might have just killed you. "What . . . what are you going to tell her about all this? When its over and you see her again."

Tristian made absolutely no sound. Leonard half-expected the sword's light to blink out from his peripheral vision, to feel a cold sensation and look down to see it sticking out of his chest, the other man having moved so fast in his anger that Leonard couldn't possibly follow.

He counted off a few seconds in his head, then again but in hexadecimal. When he reached A, he stopped, feeling the lip of the desk tucked just above his head. Nothing had happened except for an influx of more silence. This was silly, crouching down here like this. He wasn't protected and he wasn't doing any good. Tristian had clearly been annoyed by his question and had gone back to his work. It was only right, it was a stupidly, probing question anyway. Why had he even asked it? _God, Leonard, you are such a moron sometimes. No wonder why Penny won't-_

With a sigh Leonard curled his fingers around the desktop to lift himself up completely.

When his eyes cleared the top, another pair of eyes were staring right at him.

"_Ah!_" he gasped, leaning back without letting go. Tristian's eyes did not shine in the darkness, that did not happen with normal people. They were merely deep and clear and anchored to this world by a hope that was frayed but refused to yield.

"What's this about, Leonard?" He came no further up, the bottom half of his face was still obscured. Underneath the barrier he could be building engines of impossible motion, devices that could save them all, if only they believed a little bit.

He didn't need to say a word. Just laugh nervously and change the subject. Like he always did. Table it into another committee that would never get resolved. But, no, not today. Not now. "I don't know. Not completely. Its . . . yeah, wait, I do." He should have ducked back down and made the rest of his sentence easier. But it was right to stay aloft and meet the other man's gaze. "There are parts of my life I don't tell people about because I don't think they'll . . . they either won't understand or I'm afraid that they'll think differently of me. I don't know how else to put it. Like all the role-playing games and stacks of DVDs about shows with aliens and all the comic books . . . I don't tell people that because I don't want to get stereotyped as a . . ." the word sounded so angular now, oddly. "Nerd. I want them to know _me_ and not assume they know what I'm like because I know how to calculate a saving throw."

His forehead wrinkled slightly. "I don't think I'm going to get stereotyped as a Buck Rogers. For one, I've never used a jetpack."

"Ha." He shifted into a kneeled crouch that let him maintain the view. Tristian had stood up as well, not completely but enough so that more of his face could be seen. "But aren't you afraid sometimes that . . . that having found this girl who likes you, who wants to be with you, that if you tell her about days like this, where you had to kill a whole hive of aliens . . . she's going to look at you differently?"

Tristian's gaze went downward and away, briefly. "Hm." His head dipped so that his forehead was nearly touching the desk before lifting back up to stare at Leonard again. "It's occurred to me before, I'm not going to lie. Keep in mind that none of this is a huge surprise to her to begin with . . . before we were together, one of my . . . acquaintances teleported her and everyone else out of a restaurant."

"Um, that must have been awkward."

"Yeah, that wasn't a fun set of phone calls." He cast the words out as an aside, trying to get them away as quickly as possible. "But when Lena and I first decided that, that this was something worth trying, I told her that I wouldn't hold anything back. If she didn't want to know, that was fine, but if she asked, I would tell her everything. It was the only fair way to do it. The right way." He had stood up at some point during his speech, or maybe he hadn't yet. Perspective suggested the foreground, the tilted tall angles. Leonard came up as well, finding not more air but a wider view and a clearer setting. "I didn't want her to be in the dark about what I do when we're not together. I didn't want her to have to speculate or get a romanticized view of it. It's wonderful and unpleasant and frightening and amazing . . . and she needs to know all of it, every aspect." His fingernails scraped at the desk, measured and invisible parallel lines. "She didn't fall for the life I'm stuck with, she fell for me. It's hard to fathom sometimes . . ." there was a knowing, cutting grin passing quickly over his face, ". . . but its true. Anymore than I fell for her because of her job. It's people, it's what it comes down to."

Leonard glanced back toward Penny, all too fast. "And what if she doesn't want to know?"

Tristian frowned. "That's her right, I suppose. But I don't know if I'd want to . . . _be_ with a person who wanted me to hide some aspect of myself. Fortunately, that hasn't been a problem so far." There was a crease to his statement that made Leonard wonder how fully he believed it. In the meantime, Tristian placed both hands flat on the desk. "When you care about someone, they deserve to know everything. Not just the parts that make you look good. You have to learn how to let them in, otherwise why would they even want to?" He shook his head, tugging at some wires running out of the back of the computer. "It took me some time to learn that. I'm still working out the details, but having started to figure it out, I wonder what the hell took me so long to start. The first step is hard but it gets easier. That much I _can_ tell you."

Leonard watched him walk over to the other desk, giving those wires one last check. "Ah, thanks," he said, rubbing his hands together slowly. "I really didn't expect to get relationship advice along with my heroics."

This time Tristian did laugh and for the first time it seemed something other than polite. "Yeah, we're multi-faceted that way, it helps during the slow times of the year." His glance toward Leonard was sidelong and sustained. "You're a decent person, Leonard. Don't sell yourself short. Don't close yourself off and you'll find what you're looking for, one way or another."

"Thanks." Leonard was suddenly uncomfortable, the man's honesty and sheathed concern a bit too much to handle. "You know," he said, not looking at him directly, "it would have been much cooler if you had told me that some alien sage had given you that advice once upon a time."

Again the laugh. Tristian leaned against the desk, crossing his legs at the ankles. The sword had never seemed so far away from him. "The only advice I get from aliens is to learn their language because they're all tired of having to learn English to talk to me."

"Really? That's true?" Leonard shot him a startled glance. "Everyone out there really does speak English?"

"Not quite, just the ones I wind up liaising with." He glanced down, scratching at a spot just above the knee. "Turns out that while most languages lose all their nuances if you don't have mandibles or the ability to change colors, English is apparently adaptable to a wide variety of-"

"You know," a yawn came from behind both of them, "I fell asleep listening to Leonard go on about nerdy stuff and now I wake up to find you _both_ talking like that." Penny sat up on the couch, stretching with both arms and arching her back. She put her hands on her hips and shook her head at the two of them. "You guys need some kind of off switch."

"Or perhaps the game just never really ends," Tristian said with a cryptic smile.

Penny frowned, not quite getting his meaning. "That's sure what it's starting to feel like, honestly." She looked around, her eyes narrowing. "I mean, the lights are still off, its practically the middle of the night . . . when the hell does this game end-"

"Now," Brown said, striding back into the room. Sheldon was perhaps three steps behind, but seemingly strangely thin, as if he were trying to find a pocket of empty air to disappear into. He stopped near the coffee table and regarded all of them, his gaze flinted. "This is when it all stops. Right now."


	16. Chapter 16

* * * * *

Tristian was the first to move, heading over to the kitchen counter to retrieve his sword, but Penny was the first to speak. "Look who's back," she said, rolling her eyes. "Captain Brusque."

"Been called worse," he responded without even glancing at her. Penny stuck her tongue out at him, another motion he just didn't notice. If it were possible his movements were even quicker than before, possessed almost of a vibrational rapidity. Sheldon trailed behind him, constantly swaying to one side or the other to see around Brown's shoulders. But his face was oddly expressionless, or carefully controlled. It was hard to tell which was which, even for Leonard.

"Are we doing this?" Tristian asked from across the room. He was holding the sword differently from before, less casual, the tip of the blade more tightly poised. For the first time Leonard saw it as more than a toy and Tristian as more than capable of stabbing someone with it. It was easy to forget, the way these people acted.

"Yeah," Brown tossed back, bending over one of the computers and tapping swiftly at the keys. "We're ready and I don't want to give them any more time."

Penny had shifted from a kneeling position on the couch to a sitting one. "What's going on?" she asked Leonard, tipped off by the new urgency in their actions.

"Oh well . . . it's the, ah, final stage of the game," Leonard explained, sitting on the arm of the couch and doing his best to get between her and a view of what Brown was doing. Something told him Brown wasn't so eager to play pretend any longer. "We're surrounded by the bounty hunters but the, er, Grand Moff has a plan to . . . eliminate them."

Penny's eyes widened slightly. "He's going to _kill_ them?"

"He's apparently a man of infinite cruelty," Brown shouted over his shoulder, still hunched over the keyboard. "Tristian could you get over here and double check these numbers?"

Sheldon raised a finger. "As the local calculating machine, it might perhaps be better if I-"

Brown just shot him a sharp look and Sheldon fell silent, tugging on the fingers of one hand with the other.

"But that's not fair, they didn't do anything to us," Penny protested. "Not to you guys . . . its just me they wanted, right? The princess."

"Look, Penny, its the only way-"

"How can you say that?" she said, stepping off the couch with one foot and raising herself to her full short height. Even Leonard had to wince and nearly fell off the couch. "I've seen your television shows, they never just kill anybody."

Tristian had reached Brown by then, as the other man shifted a bit to give him a better look at the screen. Tristian put one arm down on the desk to brace himself and scanned the numbers, his eyes narrowed. The light from the screen flickered over his face, giving it a pale and wispy glow. "It looks like they check out," he said after a minute. One finger tapped the screen. "But what about all this down here?"

"You're supposed to . . . to let me get kidnapped or something." Leonard was trying to avoid Penny's gaze and failing miserably. _Figures the one time you focus your full attention on me I wish you were still sleeping_. "This way you can all have the big dramatic rescue and everyone can celebrate at the end."

"We're not following the proper structure," Sheldon said to no one in particular, his voice strangled.

"Clustering." The edges of Brown's mouth turned downward. "Either they figured we're up to something or they're getting ready for a push to the rest of the building." He shrugged. "In a few minutes, it won't matter. They'll have bigger concerns. Are all the other lines secure though? I don't want there to be any leakage."

"No, its feeding right."

"It's not working out that way." Leonard could barely hear his own voice. "Sometimes you win and nobody wants to have a party."

"But what about that one movie, where everyone got medals and sang with those cute fuzzy creatures?" Penny had stepped off the couch completely now, passing around Leonard. "I _liked_ that. I thought we were going to do that." She addressed Tristian's back. "I mean, Tristian, or whatever your name was, you're a Jedi. You're all supposed to be _nice_. You're telling me you're okay with this?"

"And are the surge pockets primed?" Brown asked, having moved to the other computer.

For a second Tristian paused, his entire stance frozen.

"You would just let it end like this?"

"Penny, they tried to . . . they want to kill us-"

"Tristian, _are they primed?_" Brown's voice was a bell toll lined with razors.

Tristian blinked and swallowed, closing his eyes just briefly. Just for a moment. And when he opened them again all trace of what was there before was buried. "Yeah," he said, soft and dull and resolute, "its ready. Any time now."

Sheldon winced, about to cringe at nothing.

"Then I'm going to drop the field in a few seconds. The timing needs to be precise here, okay?" Brown was completely focused on the laptop, his legs stiff in a triangular stance. Nothing could move him and he had no reason to move.

"That doesn't make this right." She went to move toward Brown but with an action that made him go all out of body, Leonard put an arm out to stop her. Penny's mouth opened soundlessly and she backed off a step.

"I know." Tristian's voice was low-lying. "Just tell me when."

"On my mark."

"It's just a game, Penny." He tried to laugh and it resembled nothing of the sound. "That's all, no reason to get worked up. Just, ah, all fun and, ah . . ."

"Back from five . . . four . . ."

"It's supposed to be!" she shouted at him, inches from his face. Her perfume was every thwarted dream his subconscious could convey. "But it's not! It's not fun at all!"

". . . three . . ."

The carbon ring in him finally snapped. "No, no it's not! It's not fun!" He was shouting over the sound of his own unraveling notions. "I wanted it to be and it's not!"

". . . two . . ."

"And I'm sorry, Penny, but out there that's how it is sometimes . . ."

". . . one . . ."

Sheldon closed his eyes and looked down, his lips moving.

". . . I'm so sorry . . ."

". . . _mark_, Tristian!"

All at once every light in the room flared into life, forcing everyone who wasn't Sheldon to wince and cover their eyes. Sheldon didn't even move, his stance perfectly solid.

"What the hell was that?" Penny whispered, unconsciously grabbing for Leonard's arm.

Brown blinked and shook his head, leaning in toward the laptop. He tapped at a few keys. "It worked," he muttered. "All the readings are right but . . ." His eyes narrowed and he kept tapping at the keyboard.

"But what?" Tristian asked, glancing over at him.

"There should be residue in the lines, some kind of remains and . . ." he was punching at the keys harder, trying to leave his fingerprints engraved in the plastic. "What the hell, I'm not seeing anything and . . . wait, what's this?"

Tristian came over to the other computer, his eyes scanning the screen. Across the room the sudden brightness didn't diminish the sword at all, but instead made it seem to push harder against the illumination.

"Is the game over?" Leonard just shook his head at her, not taking his eyes off the other men.

Brown ran a hand down the screen. "What is _this?_" A lean edge came into his voice. "Buried in that tangle, I didn't see it before. Its another line. Another line they could have escaped down."

Tristian looked puzzled. "But where does it go?"

"We're still alive, so that means we won, right? They can stop now?"

"It goes right into . . ." Brown's eyes widened ever so slightly and his shoulders stiffened. "Oh my God."

The lights dimmed by about half the brightness, oddly solemn.

Sheldon let out the tiniest of breaths, his body finally relaxing.

Brown heard it somehow and whirled on him, crossing the distance between them in two long strides, grabbing him by the front of the shirt with both hands, faster than Tristian could follow, faster than anyone could even react, the world dividing itself into two speeds, Brown and everyone else.

"_What did you do?_" he snarled, every word a battering ram. Sheldon blinked and said nothing, as if waking from a dream where everything was the opposite of what he expected and he was unsure of how to get back. "Tell me, what the hell did you do?"

Penny leapt off the couch. "Hey!" she said. "Hey! Put him down, what do you think you're doing?"

"Tristian, get them all _out_ of here." Brown's face was inches from Sheldon's. "The line goes right into this room, the bastard left the back door open and let them waltz right in."

"No!" Penny said, shrugging off Tristian. "This has gone far enough!"

"Carry her out if you have to," Brown shouted. He shook Sheldon none too gently. "You sold us out," he said, deadly and quiet. "What made you do it?"

"Sheldon, what are they talking-"

Not that far away, a song began to play, a handful of notes held, rising in minimalist swells

Sheldon only smiled, like two strings were pulling back at the edges of his lips. It gave him a look that was both cheery and arrogant. "Why, I found another way."

Leonard blinked and looked in the direction of their rooms. "Wait, I know that . . . that's the theme from _2001_."

Brown's grip on Sheldon relaxed, but only a fraction. "I'm going to ask you one more time . . ."

Sputtered fanfare sounded, followed by the thumping sound of drums as a sideways heartbeat.

Leonard's face tensed in concentration as his gaze slowly trailed across the room. "Isn't that my Dawn of Time Monolith alarm clock?"

Sheldon swallowed thickly and his grin faded into something that more closely resembled natural. "It was quite simple, once the inspiration struck me. This morning I had run an experiment on Leonard where I wanted to see if his body's natural circadian rhythm would still keep proper time even when all the clocks around him were feeding him entirely false data. To that end, I changed every clock in the apartment."

"Wow," was all Brown said. Without letting go of Sheldon, he turned his head toward Leonard. "How have you not killed him yet?"

"He cleans like a fiend," was the only response Leonard had.

"But the clock in his room was key and thus I had to ensure that there was nothing that could happen to it." Sheldon shook his shoulders a little and stepped back, allowing Brown to finally release him. "I needed to control for unplugging and power outages and an Electro type villain who would might drain the city's power supply. In order to ensure the smoothest possible experiment, I did the most logical thing. I constructed an alternate self-sustaining power supply to allow for smooth operation no matter what the electrical situation was."

Brown glanced toward Tristian and flicked his head in the direction of the bedrooms. Nodding curtly, the other man immediately moved in that direction and in seconds had disappeared down the hallway.

In the meantime, he took a step back. "So let me get this straight," Brown said, pressing his hands together into flattened triangles, and shaking them toward Sheldon in disbelief. "You went through all the trouble of inventing a self-contained power supply . . . to mess with your roommate's sense of time?"

Sheldon sniffed. "If you're going to be jealous that you didn't think of it first, then just say so."

Brown shook his head. "It certainly wouldn't be the first use for it I could think of. Or the fifth, even, come to think of it."

Penny was watching all this like a tennis match comprised entirely of gas molecules. "Wait, so what just happened?"

"The good guys won," Leonard said, interlacing his fingers and rocking back on his heels. "At least I think we did."

Sheldon slipped past Brown and strode toward Penny, his form limber and lanky. "What happened, princess Penny, was this . . . the bounty hunters chasing us thought they could slip past our force field by converting themselves into particles of energy and thus traveling through the power lines." He stood at an angle to where she sat perched on the couch, pointing a prominent finger in her face. "All the lines were blocked but I deliberately left one open, knowing that they would assume it was a mistake on our part. Or should I say, on the part of everyone else. _My _only mistake was not giving myself the proper credit earlier." Penny wrinkled her nose but said nothing. "On discovering the open line, they of course immediately transported themselves via that route, not realizing that I had prepared for them. Upon entering, they entered the clock and thus fell into my closed off power loop, which immediately cut off itself from the main supply."

"Is that brilliant?" Penny glanced toward Leonard for an answer but he only shrugged. "Because it sounds insane."

"Only to those without imagination," Sheldon said primly, clasping his hands behind his back. Another burst of horn led fanfare signaled the entrance of Tristian into the room, gingerly cradling in both hands a large upright black slab with a clock face embedded in the front of it. "And, ah, here's my little slice of genius right here."

"I hope he's not talking about me," Tristian muttered, handing the clock off to Brown. The other man ducked his head to hide his sudden smirk.

"So they're in here?" Brown asked Sheldon, tilting the clock this way and that.

"A one way conduit assures that they remain inside even when connected to another power source," Sheldon explained, leaning in with a cockeyed stance to stare at the surface of the clock, as if admiring his own reflection. Which was quite possible. "The independent power source sustains them until such time as they can be moved into a more permanent container." He glanced at Brown with one raised eyebrow. "I assume that will be your job. I certainly can't think of everything."

"No, who would expect you to," Brown responded mildly.

"There are times when I wonder how the world would cope without me."

Tristian had retrieved his sword and returned to stand next to Brown. "How long is the power going to last on this?"

Sheldon rubbed under his nose. "Given the nature of the complexities of the circuits involved, the ability of the resistors to maintain the truth of both Kirchhoff's Laws and the necessity of more elaborate equations to explain the heterodyne structure of the musical tones implied, it . . ." Brown's look was not unlike a gun pointed directly at his face. "Twenty minutes. Plus or minus."

"And who says science and the military can't talk to each other?" Brown inquired sweetly to himself.

"We have enough time to get this secure?" Tristian asked.

"I think so." Brown swept past Tristian, with Penny just barely dodging out of his way as he headed for the door. Almost automatically, Leonard opened it for him, resisting the urge to give him a salute as he went out. Seconds later both men were through and gone, the clop-clack of their footsteps on the stairs steadily diminishing.

The three of them all stared at each other, Penny folding her arms over her chest and looking both bemused and thoughtful.

A moment later, there was a rustle at the open door as Brown poked his head around the corner. "Oh, before I forget," he said, "good job everyone. We'll make sure these guys all get released somewhere they can't bother anyone. And you're all guaranteed invitations to the victory dinner." He grinned broadly and was gone again with hardly a flicker.

The silence that settled this time didn't last as long, and it was Penny who broke it. Giving Leonard a look with one eye partially squinted, she said, "Ah, did they just take your clock away?"

Looking slightly dazed, Leonard merely smiled weakly. "Well, I really only used it to tell time anyway."

* * * * *

"Often, what amazes me most about people is the infinite variations among them." Sheldon poked his chopsticks into the carton, plucking out a choice piece of chicken. He popped it into his mouth and after chewing it politely, he added, "Walk into any restaurant and the menu choices are absurdly extensive. To me, that simply caters to people who don't know what they want." The sticks dove in again, gathering up a clump of rice, also delicately but completely chewed. "I've spent _years_ mixing and matching ingredients, the sauce and the meat and the rice, all down to the cooking time. Until it perfectly entices and reward the taste buds, as well as providing necessary nutritional value." He tilted the box toward him, peering at it with the eye of a challenger regarding the defeated. "Once having discovered the perfect combination, it eliminates the need for all other menu options. They could just have one item, call it the 'Cooper Delight' and everyone would know they were getting a meal worthy of, well, me." He shrugged and settled back to allow for ease of passage down his esophagus. "And if my tastes don't count as stringent criteria, I don't know what else does."

Sitting in the chair across from Sheldon, Tristian toyed with his own meal. "Other people just lack your dedication."

"I'll tell you this, though," Brown added, sitting on the opposite side of the couch and using a fork to shovel a mouthful of vegetables into his mouth, "I've eaten Thai food in all kinds of places, and times, really . . ." he tapped the edge of the carton with his fork. "But this is probably the best I've had. I didn't think anyone could beat Zeertle's Zero Gravity Thai in 2579 and I'm including the _lovely_ meal and thwarted assassination attempt that The Tiger King greeted me with back in the 18th century." He tucked a sprig of celery that threatened to escape out the side of his mouth. "I may have to make you mail us some once we go back."

"I really don't think the local post office handles extra-dimensional," Tristian commented.

"Please," Brown scoffed. "How do you think I get those DVDs for the movie nights? It's all in how you address it."

"Sheldon I don't care how efficient it makes my dinner, I hope you didn't put all my rice in size order again-" Leonard, coming from around the corner, halted with a squeak of his shoes, his feet just hanging over the landing that dropped back into the living room. "Oh. You two really did stay."

"Sure did." Brown tapped at his carton to loosen some of the rice sticking to the sides. "The beauty of being secretive is that you don't have to bolt when the action is over." He glanced at Leonard and then back to his meal again. "I bet you thought we'd vanish without even saying goodbye."

Leonard kicked at the lip of the landing with his heel. "Well, I don't think I expected you to come back to my place for dinner." He swung his arms, not daring to venture any closer. "And I'm still not convinced you're not going to erase our memories when you're done eating."

"Oh come on." Brown leaned back, crossing one leg over another and indicating his food with one knuckle. "Why would I want to make you forget a meal like this?" His face suddenly shifted into a sly grin. "Besides, you've already called your other friends."

"I did _not_-"

Brown flipped the fork over, pointed at him with the handle. "Please, what are you holding in your hand there?"

Leonard looked down at the cell phone clenched tightly in his hand and said nothing.

"Give me a little credit here." Brown focused on his meal again. "So, how'd they react to your big scoop? Are all the authorities coming to take us away for dissection?"

Leonard studied the floor quite intently. "They, ah, listened to what happened . . ."

"Mm-hm?"

". . . for about a minute before they laughed and hung up the phone," Leonard finished quickly.

"Aw, don't feel too bad about it." Brown tapped a closed carton on the table forward with his foot. "Here, have some Thai."

"In all fairness, this was one of our stranger missions." Tristian, nearly finished, was scraping the inside of his carton with one chopstick. Leonard snagged his food off the table and stepped back, prying it open and leaning away as the steam floated out in a ghoulish cloud.

Brown laughed. "_You_ don't get to decide what's strange or not strange anymore."

Tristian bristled a little. "Hey, I'm just as objective about this stuff as you are."

His friend rolled his eyes. "Okay, Mr 'Getting Shot Into Space is Perfectly Normal.'"

Tristian put his carton down, the utensils nestled neatly inside of it. "When did I say that?"

Brown put both feet flat on the ground, sliding his empty carton toward the center of the table. "Do I really have to remind you?" He stood up, straightening out his jacket and inclining his head toward Sheldon and Leonard. "Thanks for the meal, gentlemen, but it's time we were moving on."

Tristian followed suit. "Are you really going to bring up-"

"The Freelith Incursion?" Brown shook Leonard's hand, slapping the other man heartily on the shoulder. "You're damn right I'm going to. The ship's being overrun, the command forces were down on the planet and we were trapped in the cargo bay. I come up with a nice plan to get us to the escape pods but _some_one has to one-up me"

Tristian grinned, also shaking Leonard's hand. "It was you who said 'There's only one way off this ship.' So I decided to find another. Besides, they were about to disable the escape pods."

"I could have reenabled them. I do know a little bit about computers, you know." He stepped around the table and stood over Sheldon. The two men regarded each other, neither of them even blinking. "I'd shake your hand but I also wouldn't be surprised to discover that you don't like being touched."

"I'd rather just accept your unspoken gratitude," Sheldon remarked, returning to his meal.

"How did I guess?" Brown chuckled. His face turned briefly serious, a shutter opening rather than coming down. "But . . . thank you." Sheldon only nodded briskly, refusing to look up. The normal cheer returned to Brown's face and he waved a hand to Tristian. "Come on, let's go before you blow out the bay doors here without warning. I can't believe you don't remember thinking that wasn't strange."

"No, see, _you're_ remembering it wrong." Both men reached the door just as it opened, stepping neatly around Penny without a break in their stride.

"Ma'am," Brown said, tipping an invisible hat to her as she put her back against the door to let them through. Tristian merely smiled at her as he went by. If she noticed the stubby flashlight-like device attached to his belt, one that looked remarkably like part of the toy sword he had been carrying, she never commented. "Oh, am I now?"

"Yes." They were out and out of sight. "Because I remember quite clearly what I said after we landed was 'The first five seconds of space don't feel as strange as I thought it-'"

Tristian's voice cut out, like a radio suddenly losing power. There wasn't even the sound of departing footsteps.

"Oh, I didn't even realize they had come back." Penny had changed into a light colored skirt and matching shirt, and her hair hung damply over her shoulders.

"Ah yeah, it was, ah, post-game analysis," Leonard ventured. Sheldon just gave him an odd look.

Penny put one hand on her hip. "I see. And how did we do?"

"Pretty good, pretty good." Leonard shoved more food into his mouth in the hopes that he wouldn't be tempted to say anything more but sadly his willpower was lacking in that regard. "We all survived and that was the primary goal of the game. And even better, we managed to do it without killing anyone . . . which, I mean you don't _need_ to do but it's just nice to know that some things can be solved without slaughtering aliens."

"Aliens?" Penny raised an eyebrow. "I thought they were bounty hunters."

"Alien bounty hunters," Sheldon interjected before Leonard could stammer himself into a corner. "From a confederation of villainy. But we're given them a good setback, they certainly won't be poking their beady eyes and multisegmented bodies around here any time soon."

"Yeah, what, um, what Sheldon said." Leonard became fascinated by the intricacies of Thai cooking.

"Oh, your friends are coming back?"

Sheldon and Leonard exchanged looks and said at the same time, "No."

Penny made a face and clucked her tongue. "Too bad. They were kind of fun."

"They're on like a live-action . . . tour," Leonard explained. "And a lot of times they don't know where they're going to be until the . . . situation hits."

"It's a very grueling lifestyle," Sheldon added sympathetically.

"But we got some extra Thai food for you," Leonard slipped in, pointing out the last lone carton on the table and praying it worked on changing the subject.

Penny beamed. "Oh, hey, thanks guys. That was sweet of you." She picked it up with both hands, holding it close to her chest. A little bit of her hair fell in front of her face as she stared at the box. A few seconds counted off. "Leonard?"

A bit of shrimp dangling from his lips, Leonard answered with a muffled version of her name before composing himself.

"If you, ah, have a minute I . . ." she hesitated again before letting it all slip out. "I went on my computer to look up stuff about princesses in _Star Wars _and now I think I'm in some argument with guy who says that someone called a Boba Fett is really a disguised Darth Vader." Her face scrunched up. "Help."

"Oh Christ, that old conspiracy theory again?" Leonard sighed exasperatedly. "You've got to shut those people down fast or they start breeding like Caladorian maggots." Shaking his head, he strode past her. "Come on, there's a whole web page that shows you how to rebut them. I'll bookmark it for you."

"Thanks. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm a guy, too . . ."

"Yeah, well, girls are probably a rare species to him. Best not to let him believe otherwise. What's his username?"

"I think it was . . . GreedoShotLast77?"

"_That_ bastard? Oh, buddy, you are going _down_ today-"

"Leonard." At the sound of his name, he paused in the doorway, turning back to his friend with a questioning expression on his face, one hand on the wood. Penny had already scampered off ahead, with the arced creak of her door opening following a second later.

"Yes, Sheldon?" There was little patience in his voice.

Gently, Sheldon placed his carton on the table, making sure that the corners of it were equidistant to the edges of the table. Folding his hands together, he said, "I thought I might be able to keep quiet about this, but I find I am unable to stay silent."

Leonard sighed. "Why do I suspect this is not going to be a speech about the power of teamwork? I really don't time for you to be high and mighty on me right-"

"I wanted to point out to you the gross scientific error you made earlier, when explaining to Penny the dynamics of our little group."

"Okay, fine, whatever." He banged on the door lightly in frustration. "You can give me a lecture later, I've really got to-"

Sheldon's pace never became anything other than unhurried. His gaze stared placidly straight ahead, never giving any hint to an upcoming destination. "Despite your facts being imprecise, your explanation laughably simplistic and your metaphor utterly inelegant . . ." Leonard just shook his head irritably and started to slip out the door.

". . . at the root of it, it is as good a description as any of us will ever encounter."

Leonard stopped, one eye squinting as he gave his friend an odd look. "Thanks . . . I guess," he said softly.

"But you still made an error," Sheldon pointed out. He frowned and glanced down at his lap briefly. "When you listed the quarks, not only did you use the antiquated name for the truth quark . . ."

"I'm old school, what can I say?" he muttered.

". . . you also left one out as well." Very precisely he put his hands flat on his knees. "I suspect that was not an oversight."

Leonard looked away abruptly and adjusted his glasses. "Yeah, figures you'd notice that." He drew himself up a little taller, letting go of the door. "And anyway, if I did, what of it? Huh?"

"Why, nothing, Leonard," his friend replied calmly. "We all have to live with our own mistakes and you are long past the age where I can hold your hand, literally or scientifically. And while I won't speculate on your no doubt utterly well thought out reasons for such an egregious omission . . ."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He waved one hand toward the couch and started to leave again.

". . . I suggest that you explain it to her again one day." Leonard halted again, staring very hard at the back of the furniture. "And this time, you do not leave anything out."

Leonard regarded his friend with a mixture of disbelief and wonder. "You really think so?"

"Oh, I know so," Sheldon said matter-of-factly. "You of all people should know that no matter what, I strive for accuracy in all things."

Leonard snorted into a quiet laugh. "Of course you do." If Sheldon heard, he gave no indication of it, insisting on remaining perfectly still. Leonard scuffed his foot on the floor, looking as if he were about to say something else.

"Leonard!" Penny's voice was away and all too near. "He just called me a newb! But he spelled it with numbers! What the hell does that even mean?"

Leonard looked out quickly toward the hallway and then back again. "I'd better go," he said, one hand gripping the edge of the door like he was trying to remain anchored in a strong wind. "This shouldn't take long. It'll be his curfew soon."

"Accept no quarter, Leonard. And send him my love," Sheldon called out over the top of the couch, but the sound of the slamming door barricaded his words indoors. Shaking his head in amusement, he enjoyed a couple more mouthfuls.

Then, he stopped suddenly and looked at his watch. Narrowing his eyes, he reached forward and picked the TV remote off the table.

He flipped the television on, and the semi-electronic strains of a warped soundtrack filled the room, even a voice called out, "_Doctor, if we don't act fast, the Daleks are going to overrun the satellite . . ._"

Sheldon only smiled. "Amateurs," he murmured, before switching the television off and settling back to efficiently finish his Thai.

**THE END**

"_If anyone happens to ask whether I made any material difference to the welfare of this planet, you can tell them I came and went like a summer cloud . . ." ­_– _Doctor Who, _"Frontios"

March-August 2009

MB

RP

And we reach the end. To anyone who made it here without skipping all the way to the end . . . you have impressive stamina. For weathering terrible science jokes (the Wikipedia and I became best friends during the course of this), for weathering even worse metaphors involving SF and an attempt to structure this as a dialogue between the melancholy absurdist tone of my stories and a bunch of sitcom characters, for weathering a lack of exposition that is almost crippling at times, a sense of pacing that can at best be called sporadic and a need to have three things going on at once in every scene even if I'm the only one who can conceivably follow the threads . . . you have my endless sympathies and my thanks. This started out as a simple idea (aliens in the apartment building! my characters show up to help! hilarity ensues!) and about three months into it I started to realize it wasn't a simple idea. At all. It may not be what anyone who was searching for further stories of their favorite nerdy sitcom characters was looking for, but as a quirky little piece in all its ramshackle, plotted on the fly glory, it'll do.

So, thank you. And if you laughed at any of the jokes . . . oh thank God, because I really wasn't sure if any of them were funny of not.

Cheers.


End file.
